It might be tempting to suppose that the humble rabbit lacks impressive features like the flashy attributes that other wildlife animals get to show off. Cottontails have no exotic quills to rattle like a porcupine can. Cottontails have no show-stopping markings to put on display like a peacock does. Cottontails have no melodic tune to share with the world like a songbird will.
But even though Cottontail Rabbits work very hard not to stand out, we're confident that these five fun facts about Cottontails will leave you eager to learn more about this fascinating animal!
A Cottontail's vision covers almost 360 degrees! Each of their large, round eyes is positioned on the side of the rabbit's head, but the dome of the eye protrudes from the face just enough to give them an incredible field of vision. Their only blind spots are directly behind them and a few inches in front of them.
Rabbits have a digestive system based on "hind gut fermentation" that is similar to a horse's! This means that both animals depend on microbes like good bacteria to help extract the nutrients from their food towards the end of their digestive tract. But with rabbits, though, their digestive system requires them to process their food not once, but twice. Their poop comes in two forms: hard pellets which offer no additional nutritional value to the rabbit, and soft pellets called cecotropes, which still contain key nutrients that the bunny needs. In order to fully extract all the nutrition from their diet, their digestive tract must process the cecotropes a second time around. Rabbits must achieve this by eating their own poop! And while we're on the topic of digestion, did you know that a rabbit's digestive tract cannot go in reverse? This means that it is physically impossible for a rabbit to throw up!
When happy, rabbits will often express their joy with a binky. This is more common with domestic rabbits, but the behavior has also been witnessed with wild bunnies, including Cottontails, as well. When feeling a good deal of joy and excitement, bunnies like to bust a move, which involves an energetic leap into the air, coupled with a twist of its hind feet, causing a spin or rotation in midair.
A Cottontail's nose is a very important (and cute!) part of its body. A rabbit's sense of smell is as much as 20 times more sensitive than a human's. In fact, a bunny has over a million cells in the nose and nasal passages dedicated solely to the sense of smell! Cottontails twitch their noses for a number of reasons, including the need to regulate their body temperature. But the most common reason a bunny twitches its nose is to thoroughly expose all those sensitive smell receptors in the nasal passageways to the many scents drifting in the air in their surrounding environment. This is one of the main ways a rabbit stays safe.
Rabbits are mammals, but contrary to common belief, they are not rodents! They are actually categorized as lagomorphs. One of the easiest ways to determine if you are dealing with a lagomorph is to look at its teeth. An incisor is a flat tooth located at the front of the mouth used for cutting and gnawing. (You have some, yourself- take a good look at your front teeth!) A rodent will never have any more than two incisors on top, while lagomorphs have four!
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