Davis Mountains cottontail

The Davis Mountains cottontail, also called the robust cottontail or Holzner's cottontail and treated by some authorities as Sylvilagus robustus, is a cottontail rabbit native to high-altitude regions of the southwestern United States and western Mexico. It and its subspecies were long considered subspecies of the eastern cottontail but were promoted to species level on morphological analysis, and genetic data have confirmed their uniqueness; the two are distinguished mainly by size and by dental and cranial differences. Three subspecies are recognised: one endemic to northwestern and central Arizona, a widespread one ranging through the mountains of southeastern Arizona and south-central New Mexico and south along the Sierra Madre Occidental to Sinaloa, and the Davis Mountains form, historically endemic to four mountain ranges in Texas, New Mexico and Coahuila, whose Chisos and Guadalupe Mountains populations are suspected to be extirpated and which is considered vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.