Familiar animals can be just as interesting as less common ones, and the cottontail rabbit ranks as one of our most familiar–and interesting–creatures. In the photo below (direction of travel from right to left) we see it’s characteristic Y-shaped bounding pattern: two rear tracks even with each other and widely spaced, and two front tracks behind the rear ones, more narrowly spaced with one leading the other. The right front print (the first foot to come down) lies at the right side of the photo and the left front print (the second foot to come down) lies to its left. Farther to the left you see the rear prints which form the diverging branches of the Y. I found these tracks on a highly developed barrier island on the New Jersey coast, probably not a place you would expect to find cottontails. But these animals manage to survive and flourish not just in rural and undeveloped areas but also in city parks, suburban communities, and busy commercial zones.
Although the pattern shown above is very common, it’s not the only four-print arrangement you’ll see. Sometimes a rabbit’s front feet come down together, and when this happens the prints are even with each other and pressed tightly together. Bounding squirrels make groups similar to those of rabbits, but the spacing of the front tracks is different. Whether the front prints are even with each other (the most common arrangement) or whether one leads the other, there is almost always a gap between the two prints. In the photo below the rabbit tracks are in the lower left and the squirrel tracks are at the upper right.
The tracks in the photo below were made by a cottontail bounding in deep snow (direction of travel from bottom to top), and the toes are splayed out in both front and rear tracks. Tracks like these are sometimes mistaken for snowshoe hare tracks because of their larger size.
The feet of both cottontails and snowshoe hares can spread when increased support is needed, but there’s a drastic difference between the two animals. The maximum width of a cottontail’s hind print is about 2 1/2 inches, while a snowshoe hare’s rear track can reach a width of more than 5 inches. The photo below shows a rabbit’s rear foot (seen from the bottom) in a splayed position. Note that the rear foot has only four toes.
In the photo above you can see the thick fur which covers the bottom of the rear foot of the cottontail, and the front foot is just as furry. This is why the outlines of the toes in rabbit tracks are blurry, especially in snow. The next photo shows the right front print of a cottontail (facing to the right) in mud that had dried to a perfect consistency for recording fine details. The toes are visible but not sharply defined, and the texture of the fur can be seen in and around the toe impressions. This photo also shows all five toes clearly–yes, there are five toes on the front foot of the rabbit. But counting toes can be difficult because there are also some pads which look like toes.
To help sort this out I’ve marked the toes and two of the pads in the next photo. The innermost toe is marked Toe 1, following the convention of numbering from the inside of the foot. It’s smaller than the others and often fails to register in tracks. The other four toes are larger and tipped with substantial claws, and the toe arrangement as a whole is asymmetrical.
If you’ve ever had a run-in with a rabbit’s foot you know that, in spite of the furry covering, the sharp claws can dig in quite effectively. Sometimes the claws are the only parts of the foot that make impressions, as in this photo of the right and left rear tracks of a rabbit in a hurry (direction of travel toward the upper right).
In addition to tracks, rabbits leave many other signs of their presence. You may find stems bitten off at an angle like the multiflora rose in the photo below. These angled cuts are characteristic of rabbit browsing and they arise from the anatomy of the rabbit’s jaws.
In the next photo you see the lower jaw of a cottontail with an added line representing a stem or twig. As it takes the stem between its upper and lower incisors, the rabbit positions the stem so that one end passes through the gap between its incisors and its molars. This biting technique results in an angled cut. Deer don’t have upper incisors so instead of making a clean bite, a deer grasps the stem between its lower incisors and its horny upper palate and pulls or jerks to make a rough break.
Cottontails also feed on the bark of young trees and shrubs. Their chews have a rough appearance, with bites penetrating to varying depths, as in the staghorn sumac stem shown below. Chews made by other bark feeders (beavers, porcupines, voles, and occasionally squirrels) are much neater and more consistent in depth of penetration.
Whether it’s bark, twigs, or buds, a rabbit has to ingest a lot of fiber to get at the nutritious living cells in the cambium or in the tiny leaf initials inside buds. The animals boost the nutrition they get from their food by processing it twice. After passing through most of the digestive system, waste is diverted to the caecum where it is fermented to produce additional nutrients. This material is eliminated, usually at night, as clusters of soft globs called caecotropes. We seldom see this kind of fecal matter because the rabbit eats it immediately. After passing through the digestive system again, the waste is eliminated as pellets like the ones in the next photo.
These pellets are dry and fibrous, and are normally scattered irregularly where rabbits feed and move about. Unlike the rounded cylindrical pellets of deer, rabbit pellets are shaped like slightly flattened spheres. Cottontails are now shifting to their summer diet of grasses, forbs, and flowers, but the final result will be pellets similar to those produced from woody food.
The cottontail rabbit is a thoroughly interesting creature with some impressive tools for survival. By observing its tracks and trails as well as chews, scat, and other sign, we can appreciate a creature that is beautifully adapted to its environment.