you've found a baby bunny! But is it a cottontail or a jackrabbit?
Not knowing can be deadly to the bunny.
have a natural camouflage coat of tan, brown, and sometime gray
tones evenly distributed. Desert cottontails, Arizona's most
common species, have a rusty patch at the nape of the neck and
up the back of the skull. Their heads are narrow viewed from
the front, and egg-shaped from the side. Jacks have much darker
coats with black "marbling" and often facial streaks. They have
a snub nose, dome-shaped head, tan rings around the eyes, and
a ring of white around the muzzle.
are the most common of the jackrabbits. They have black tips
on the back of their ears and, when you flip the tail down,
it has a black stripe that ends at the base of the spine. Whitetailed,
Antelope, and the rare Whitesided are the three subspecies of
go through a dramatic physical change, becoming lean, muscular,
angular; and those ears! They stand an average of half the length
of the body. When lying down, the ears often reach the knees.
Antelope Jackrabbits are the largest
of all species of hare
estimating its age: