Jack Rabbits
(White-tailed, Black-tailed, Snowshoed)
Ayize Gwebu
December 3, 2011
Description
There are three species of jack rabbits in California: white tailed, black tailed, and snowshoed. Another name for the jack rabbit is hare. The white tailed jackrabbit turns white in the winter and can be confused with a regular white tailed rabbit (Fig. 1). The color of the jack rabbit fur is buff like sand (Fig. 2). The only way to tell the black tailed from the white tailed jack rabbit is the underside color of their tails. The underside fur of the white tailed is white and the black tailed is black. The edges of their ears always have black fur, even the jackrabbits that turn white in the winter. The difference between a Jack rabbit and a regular rabbit is they are bigger, skinnier, faster, longer ears, and their leverets are born with fur and open eyes.
Figure 1. White-tailed Jackrabbit in the winter looks like a regular white-tailed rabbit
Size White -tailed jack rabbits and black tailed rabbits are 18 to 25 inches. Snoewshoe jack rabbits are 16-20 inches long.
Physical Abilities
Black tailed jack rabbits can run up to 30-35 miles per hour, the white tailed rabbits go to 34 miles per hour, and the snowshoe hare can run up to 27 miles per hour. The jack rabbit escapes predators by sharp turns and can jump 10-20 feet at once.
Lifestyle and Natural Enemies
The natural enemies of Jack rabbits include coyotes, bobcats, foxes, Horned owls, hawks and snakes. The jackrabbit likes to eat grass in the night time, during the day they crouch to hide. They like to take dust baths, to remove bugs from their fur. Jack rabbits communicate by thumping their hind feet on the ground, but can scream when caught by a predator. Jack rabbits eat their feces so they can get try to get all the nutrients from their food.
Leverets
They can have six babies, or leverets, at a time. It is so hard to care for all of the leverets. The mother has to guard them so they can stay out of trouble. Jack rabbits have to fear the golden eagle, one of their predators.
The dad leaves so the leverets have to eat more so they can grow. This makes it possible for the leverets to get big like their mother and father. Sometimes in the summer the mother or father sit out in the open and would see the good things and bad things and then help the leverets learn. After seven to eight months the leverets will be old enough to go and get a mate or look at the wild but I think that they will get a mate.
Location
Where do jack rabbits live? They live all around North America; different varieties live in dessert regions or colder mountain regions. They like to live in open space so they can run away and avoid predators. The White-tailed jackrabbit lives throughout west-central Canada and the United States, the Black-tailed rabbit lives throughout the southwestern United States into Mexico, east to Missouri, north into Washington, Idaho, Colorado and Nebraska, and west to California and Baja California. The Snowshoe jack rabbit lives in the mountain ranges throughout Canada and in the northernmost United States.
Diet
What do they eat? Jack rabbits eat only veggies and plants. When they run out of green plants, they eat twigs and young bark from trees. Fifteen jackrabbits can eat as much grass as a big cow grazing grass all day.
Life cycle
The mother has five or seven leverets many times a year. The mother is pregnant for 36-43 days. They grow fast and get to adult size in seven to eight months. They live for five or six years in captivity, but die sooner in the wild because of predators and disease.
Figure 2. Black tailed Jack rabbit (above), Snowshoe Jack rabbit (below).
References
Bachman, J. http://www.mnh.si.edu/mna//image_info.cfm?species_id=133, [Online] Available,
December 3, 2011.
Ballenger,L. http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Lepus_. californicus.html[Online]
Available, December 3, 2011.
Sharp, J. W. http://www.desertusa.com/july96/du_rabbi.html. [Online] Available, December
3, 2011.
