Tres Marias cottontail

The Tres Marias cottontail, Sylvilagus graysoni, also called the Tres Marias rabbit, is a medium-sized rabbit endemic to the Islas Marias off the Pacific coast of Mexico, where it is the only member of the family Leporidae. It is relatively unafraid of humans and prefers the islands' dry tropical forests and areas with plenty of bushes, under which it rests for most of the day. American zoologist Joel Asaph Allen first described it in 1877 as Grayson's hare and placed it in the genus Lepus; it was moved to Sylvilagus in 1904. It has few predators, the known native ones being birds of prey and the Tres Marias raccoon, but it has been threatened by habitat loss from human developments and by browsing from introduced white-tailed deer and goats. The Mexican government and the IUCN consider it endangered, and population declines have been reported across most of its range except on the island of San Juanito.