Eastern Cottontail Rabbit - more than you really wanted to know.

Cottontail rabbits are common over most of North America, and are very similar to their European counterparts. But there are 16 species of cottontails in North America, so not all your cottontails will look like the Eastern Cottontail Rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus) I've photographed below.

Here's one at the edge of our yard.

Do you think the grass needs mowing? ;-)

Rabbits are sometimes mistakenly considered a kind of rodent, and Carl Linnaeus originally grouped rabbits and rodents together under the class Glires, which has now become a Superclass of the class Mammalia. Recent findings and DNA analysis show that they do share a common ancestor, and that their similarities are not a result of convergent evolution as was once thought not so long ago.

Here's a bunny happily munching some greens in our yard.

Actually, maybe I can just invite more rabbits to dine here, then I won't have to worry about mowing the law!

Here's a photo I took last year. It's not a great shot, but...

Any question about just why they're called cottontails??

Rabbits often run in long arcs or circles when chased/hunted. This seems to make sense since their territories are usually circular in regular terrain.

The rabbit in the video below (from last year) isn't running though. It was happily munching on our yard, quite unconcerned about the human filming it.

I leave you with one last bit of trivia:

Male rabbits are called bucks while females are called does. Young rabbits are called kits or kittens. This may seem curious, or even ironic, since many other kinds of kits and kittens (e.g., fox, cat) grow up to be predators of rabbit kittens.