WILDLIFE DISTRIBUTION AND OCCURRENCE
WILDLIFE SPECIES: Sylvilagus floridanus | Eastern Cottontail 



GENERAL DISTRIBUTION : 
The eastern cottontail range extends from the Great Plains and
throughout the eastern United States and extreme southern Canada south
through eastern Mexico and central America and west into parts of Texas,
New Mexico, and Arizona [17,27].  Transplanted eastern cottontails have
established large breeding populations in Washington and Oregon [48].
The range of eastern cottontail overlaps those of six other cottontails
(Sylvilagus spp.) and six species of hares (Lepus spp.)  [10].


ECOSYSTEMS : 
FRES10 White-red-jack pine
FRES11 Spruce-fir
FRES12 Longleaf-slash pine
FRES13 Loblolly-shortleaf pine
FRES14 Oak-pine
FRES15 Oak-hickory
FRES16 Oak-gum-cypress
FRES17 Elm-ash-cottonwood
FRES18 Maple-beech-birch
FRES19 Aspen-birch
FRES21 Ponderosa pine
FRES28 Western hardwoods
FRES30 Desert shrub
FRES32 Texas savanna
FRES33 Southwestern shrubsteppe
FRES35 Pinyon-juniper
FRES38 Plains grasslands
FRES39 Prairie


STATES : 


    
AL
    
AZ
    
AR
    
CO
    
CT
    
DE
    
FL
    
GA
    
IL
    
IN


    
IA
    
KS
    
KY
    
LA
    
ME
    
MD
    
MA
    
MI
    
MN
    
MS


    
MO
    
MT
    
NE
    
NH
    
NJ
    
NM
    
NY
    
NC
    
ND
    
OH


    
OK
    
OR
    
PA
    
RI
    
SC
   
SD
    
TN
    
TX
    
VT
    
VA


    
WA
    
WV
    
WI
    
WY






    
MB
    
ON
    
PQ
    
SK
    
YT




BLM PHYSIOGRAPHIC REGIONS : 
    5  Columbia Plateau
    7  Lower Basin and Range
   11  Southern Rocky Mountains
   12  Colorado Plateau
   13  Rocky Mountain Piedmont
   14  Great Plains
   15  Black Hills Uplift
   16  Upper Missouri Basin and Broken Lands


KUCHLER PLANT ASSOCIATIONS : 
   K005  Mixed conifer forest
   K010  Ponderosa shrub forest
   K011  Western ponderosa forest
   K019  Arizona pine forest 
   K022  Great Basin pine forest
   K023  Juniper-pinyon woodland
   K024  Juniper steppe woodland
   K027  Mesquite bosque
   K032  Transition between K031 and K037
   K041  Creosotebush
   K042  Creosotebush-bursage
   K044  Creosotebush-tarbush
   K045  Ceniza shrub
   K058  Grama-tobosa shrubsteppe
   K059  Trans-Pecos shrub savanna
   K060  Mesquite savanna
   K064  Grama-needlegrass-wheatgrass
   K065  Grama-buffalograss
   K066  Wheatgrass-needlegrass
   K067  Wheatgrass-bluestem-needlegrass
   K068  Wheatgrass-grama-buffalograss
   K069  Bluestem-grama prairie
   K070  Sandsage-bluestem prairie
   K074  Bluestem prairie
   K075  Nebraska Sandhills prairie
   K076  Blackland prairie
   K077  Bluestem-sacahuista prairie
   K081  Oak savanna
   K083  Cedar glades
   K086  Juniper-oak savanna
   K088  Fayette prairie
   K093  Great Lakes spruce-fir forest
   K094  Conifer bog
   K095  Great Lakes pine forest
   K096  Northeastern spruce-fir forest
   K097  Southeastern spruce-fir forest
   K099  Maple-basswood forest
   K102  Beech-maple forest
   K103  Mixed mesophytic forest
   K104  Appalachian oak forest
   K105  Mangrove
   K107  Northern hardwoods-fir forest
   K108  Northern hardwoods-spruce forest
   K110  Northeastern oak-pine forest
   K111  Oak-hickory-pine forest
   K112  Southern mixed forest
   K113  Southern floodplain forest
   K114  Pocosin
   K115  Sand pine scrub


SAF COVER TYPES : 
     1  Jack pine
    14  Northern pin oak
    15  Red pine
    16  Aspen
    17  Pin cherry
    18  Paper birch
    19  Gray birch-red maple
    20  White pine-northern red oak-red maple
    21  Eastern white pine
    22  White pine-hemlock
    23  Eastern hemlock
    24  Hemlock-yellow birch
    25  Sugar maple-beech-yellow birch
    26  Sugar maple-basswood
    27  Sugar maple
    28  Black cherry-maple
    35  Paper birch-red spruce-balsam fir
    40  Post oak-blackjack oak
    42  Bur oak
    43  Bear oak
    44  Chestnut oak
    45  Pitch pine
    46  Eastern redcedar
    50  Black locust
    51  White pine-chestnut oak
    52  White oak-black oak-northern red oak
    53  White oak
    55  Northern red oak
    57  Yellow-poplar
    58  Yellow-poplar-eastern hemlock
    59  Yellow-poplar-white oak-northern red oak
    60  Beech-sugar maple
    61  River birch-sycamore
    62  Silver maple-American elm
    63  Cottonwood
    64  Sassafras-persimmon
    67  Mohrs (shin) oak
    68  Mesquite
    69  Sand pine
    70  Longleaf pine
    71  Longleaf pine-scrub oak
    72  Southern scrub oak
    74  Cabbage palmetto
    75  Shortleaf pine
    76  Shortleaf pine-oak
    80  Loblolly pine-shortleaf pine
    81  Loblolly pine
    82  Loblolly pine-hardwood
    83  Longleaf pine-slash pine
    84  Slash pine
    87  Sweetgum-yellow-poplar
    88  Willow oak-water oak-diamondleaf oak
    89  Live oak
    97  Atlantic white-cedar
   101  Baldcypress
   109  Hawthorn
   110  Black oak
   111  South Florida slash pine
   220  Rocky Mountain juniper
   238  Western juniper
   239  Pinyon-juniper
   237  Interior ponderosa pine
   240  Arizona cypress
   241  Western live oak
   242  Mesquite


SRM (RANGELAND) COVER TYPES : 
   107  Western juniper/big sagebrush/bluebunch wheatgrass
   109  Ponderosa pine shrubland
   110  Ponderosa pine-grassland
   203  Riparian woodland
   210  Bitterbrush
   211  Creosotebush scrub
   409  Tall forb
   412  Juniper-pinyon woodland
   413  Gambel oak
   422  Riparian
   502  Grama-galleta
   504  Juniper-pinyon pine woodland
   505  Grama-tobosa shrub
   509  Transition between oak-juniper woodland and mahogany-oak association
   731  Cross timbers-Oklahoma
   732  Cross timbers-Texas (little bluestem-post oak)
   733  Juniper-oak
   801  Savanna
   804  Tall fescue
   805  Riparian
   810  Longleaf pine-turkey oak hills
   811  South Florida flatwoods
   812  North Florida flatwoods
   813  Cutthroat seeps
   814  Cabbage palm flatwoods
   815  Upland hardwood hammocks
   816  Cabbage palm hammocks
   817  Oak hammocks
   820  Everglades flatwoods


PLANT COMMUNITIES : 
The eastern cottontail uses the broadest range of habitats of any
cottontail (Sylvilagus spp.) [48].  Eastern cottontails typically occupy
fields, farms, and woodlands.  Historically eastern cottontails were
associated with natural glades and woodlands, prairies, swamps, deserts,
hardwood forests, temperate rainforests, and boreal forests [10,48].

In New York eastern cottontails occur in pitch pine (Pinus rigida)-white
oak (Quercus alba)-scarlet oak (Q. coccinea)-black oak (Q. velutina)
woodlands with black huckleberry (Gaylussacia baccata) and lowbush
blueberry (Vaccinium vacillans) in the understory [49].

Eastern cottontails preferred prairie-eastern redcedar (Juniperus
virginiana) and blackjack oak (Q. marilandica)-post oak (Q.
stellata)-prairie ecotone habitats over other types in the Oklahoma
Cross Timbers.  Mature hardwood overstory and mixed-brush habitats were
avoided [41].  In central Arizona eastern cottontails are present in
ponderosa pine (P. ponderoas)-Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii)-white
fir (Abies concolor) communities, with alligator juniper (Juniperus
deppeana) and Gambel oak (Q. gambelii) [13].

In Texas eastern cottontails occur in the Big Bend area in communities
dominated by creosotebush (Larrea tridentata), prickly pear (Opuntia
spp.), tarbush (Flourensia cernua), mesquites (Prosopis spp.), and
ocotillo (Fouqueria splendens) [18].

Eastern cottontails are present in the Great Dismal Swamp, North
Carolina, in mixed hardwood forests dominated by red maple (Acer
rubrum), black tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica), oaks (Quercus spp.), slash pine
(Pinus elliottii), and sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua); and in swamps
dominated by baldcypress (Taxodium distichum) and water tupelo (Nyssa
aquatica), or Atlantic white-cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides) [29].

In Alabama eastern cottontails are found in woodlands dominated by
shortleaf pine (P. echinata), southern red oak (Quercus falcata),
sweetgum, yellow-poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), and other oaks and
hickories (Carya spp.).  Understory species include broomsedge
(Andropogon virginicus), panicums (Panicum spp.), other grasses,
sassafras (Sassafras albidum), and seedlings of overstory trees.
Eastern cottontails are also found in fields including alfalfa (Medicago
sativa), bahiagrass (Paspalum notatum), white clover (Trifolium incana),
and dallisgrass (Paspalus dilatatum) [57].

Southwestern ponderosa pine forest:  Cottontails including eastern
cottontail occur in minor populations in southwestern ponderosa pine
forests; this scarcity may be due to lack of surface cover [12].


REFERENCES : 
NO-ENTRY

Related categories for Wildlife Species: Sylvilagus floridanus | Eastern Cottontail