Desert cottontail

The desert cottontail, Sylvilagus audubonii, is a cottontail rabbit found throughout the western United States from eastern Montana to western Texas and in northern and central Mexico. Its range reaches barely into the Great Plains in the east and extends west to central Nevada, central and southern California and Baja California. It is particularly associated with the dry near-desert grasslands of the American southwest, though it is also found in less arid habitats such as pinyon-juniper forest, and frequently in riparian zones in arid regions. Adults are 36 to 42 centimetres long and weigh 700 to 1,200 grams. Cottontails are herbivores, with 90 percent of their diet consisting of grass, and they also feed on mesquite leaves and pods, bark, fallen fruit, prickly pear pads and shrub twigs; they rarely need to drink. Native Americans hunted them for meat, fur and hides, and the species is considered a game species hunted for sport.