How big does a Desert cottontail get? Here is an overview over the average adult age:
A grown Desert cottontail (Sylvilagus audubonii) reaches an average size of 32.5 cm (1′ 1″).
When born, they have an average size of 0 cm (0′ 0″). A full-grown exemplary reaches roughly 882 grams (1.94 lbs). On birth they have a weight of 34 grams (0.07 lbs). A Desert cottontail has 3 babies at once. The Desert cottontail (genus: Sylvilagus) is a member of the family Leporidae.
As a reference: Humans reach an average body size of 1.65m (5′ 5″) while carrying 62 kg (137 lbs). A human woman is pregnant for 280 days (40 weeks) and on average become 75 years old.
The desert cottontail (Sylvilagus audubonii), also known as Audubon’s cottontail, is a New World cottontail rabbit, and a member of the family Leporidae. Unlike the European rabbit, they do not form social burrow systems, but compared with some other leporids, they are extremely tolerant of other individuals in their vicinity.Cottontails give birth to their kits in burrows vacated by other mammals. They sometimes cool off, or take refuge in scratched out shallow created depressions of their own making, using their front paws like a back hoe. They are not usually active in the middle of the day, but can be observed foraging in the early morning, and early evening. Cottontails are rarely found out of their burrows looking for food on windy days, because the wind interferes with their ability to hear approaching predators, their primary defense mechanism.The dental formula for Sylvilagus audubonii is 2.0.3.31.0.3.3= 28. All species under the family Leporidae have the same dental formula.
Animals of the same family as a Desert cottontail
We found other animals of the Leporidae family:
- African savanna hare with a size of 45 cm (1′ 6″)
- Mountain hare with a size of 50.9 cm (1′ 9″)
- Black-tailed jackrabbit with a size of 48.4 cm (1′ 8″)
- Black jackrabbit with a size of 23.9 cm (0′ 10″)
- Hispid hare with a size of 46 cm (1′ 7″)
- White-tailed jackrabbit with a size of 51.3 cm (1′ 9″)
- Arctic hare with a size of 57.2 cm (1′ 11″)
- Ethiopian highland hare with a size of 51 cm (1′ 9″)
- Eastern cottontail with a size of 37.2 cm (1′ 3″)
- Mexican cottontail with a size of 43.5 cm (1′ 6″)
Animals with the same size as a Desert cottontail
Not that size really matters, but it makes things comparable. So here are a couple of animals that are as big as Desert cottontail:
- Tailless tenrec with a size of 32.7 cm (1′ 1″)
- Common kusimanse with a size of 33.9 cm (1′ 2″)
- Cape dune mole-rat with a size of 27.9 cm (0′ 11″)
- New Britain water rat with a size of 29.2 cm (1′ 0″)
- Javan mongoose with a size of 27.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- Pousargues’s mongoose with a size of 29 cm (1′ 0″)
- Northern sportive lemur with a size of 28 cm (1′ 0″)
- Eastern woolly lemur with a size of 27.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- Clara’s echymipera with a size of 34.1 cm (1′ 2″)
- Angolan kusimanse with a size of 32.6 cm (1′ 1″)
Animals with the same litter size as a Desert cottontail
Here is a list of animals that have the same number of babies per litter (3) as a Desert cottontail:
- Southern flying squirrel
- Eastern red bat
- Oryzomys couesi
- Northern mole vole
- Namaqua rock rat
- Rakali
- Northern collared lemming
- Gray climbing mouse
- Allen’s wood mouse
- Himalayan field rat
Animals with the same weight as a Desert cottontail
As a comparison, here are some other animals that weight as much as the Sylvilagus audubonii:
- Poncelet’s giant rat with a weight of 1 kilos (2.2 lbs)
- Utah prairie dog bringing 900 grams to the scale
- Azara’s night monkey bringing 929 grams to the scale
- Meerkat bringing 730 grams to the scale
- Desert rat-kangaroo bringing 929 grams to the scale
- Gray-bellied night monkey bringing 873 grams to the scale
- Travancore flying squirrel bringing 794 grams to the scale
- Cuban solenodon bringing 806 grams to the scale
- American marten bringing 878 grams to the scale
- Chinese ferret-badger bringing 939 grams to the scale