The eastern cottontail rabbit (Sylvilagus floridanus) is the most widespread and abundant rabbit species in North America, with a range extending from southern Canada, through Mexico and Central America, and into northern South America. In the United States it is found in the eastern and south-central region and thanks to the clearing of land for agriculture its range is spreading. It has also been introduced into some western states. Eastern cottontails live in edge habitats, meadows, forest clearings, old fields, and grassy places, making them a common visitor to backyard lawns and gardens. Indeed, my own yard supports a healthy population of cottontails and there are babies born in it every year. This year, a cottontail decided to make her nest in an rather unusual spot, my outdoor tortoise pen. Since Burt (my red-footed tortoise) is an omnivore, I decided it would be best to move him for the few weeks that the kittens would be in the nest. Yes, baby rabbits are called kittens!
Watching the baby rabbits grow and develop was a real treat for the entire household, and my oldest daughter in particular. Once the eight babies left the nest I rounded them up and moved them out of the pen, for fear that a predator would find them and make an easy meal of the confined bunnies. Naturally, my daughter wanted to keep them as pets, but cottontails are not domestic rabbits and do poorly in captivity. They belong in the wild and so I decided to buy my daughter the Safari Ltd. eastern cottontail rabbit for her upcoming birthday, to commemorate this core memory. I might as well feature it on the blog too, what with having bunnies on the brain.
The Safari Ltd. eastern cottontail is one of only a few figures of the species and all the rest are old, crude, and barely if even identifiable as eastern cottontails. The figure was sculpted by Doug Watson and released in 2012. It is still in production. The figure measures 4.25” (10.8 cm) long and stands 2.75” (6.99 cm) tall to the tips of its ears. It’s about 1/1 in scale for a 3-4 week old cottontail just leaving the nest. Since cottontails can have 1-7 litters per season, I half expect to see another nest of bunnies in my tortoise pen before year’s end! Eastern cottontails reach maturity at 2-3 months of age and reach a size of 1.8-4.4 lbs. (800-2,000 grams).
The Safari cottontail is sitting in a relaxed pose with the ears perked and the head looking slightly leftward. It’s an adorable figure, with its large head and eyes, and proportionally short ears that are accurate for a cottontail of this age. The layered fur texturing is excellent and makes the figure appear as fluffy as a plastic toy possibly can. The underside has sculpted fur too, and distinct digits on the paws.
The figure is painted in various shades of brown that blend together nicely and there’s a black wash over the fur that makes the figure appear all the more lifelike. The big, bright eyes are glossy brown with large, black pupils, and ringed in white fur. White is also painted around the nose, mouth, and chin, and a white ring runs up and around the neck. The belly is white and the feet have a white wash over them. The inside of the ears is pink and the nose and mouth are outlined in pink. All that’s missing is the white blaze on the forehead that baby cottontails have, but this vanishes with age anyway.
The namesake cotton-like tail is white on the underside. In life, a flashing of the white tail both warns other rabbits of danger and serves as a visual distraction to confuse predators. During the chase the rabbits will hide the underside of the tail and essentially vanish from the predator that was focused in on the white flash of fur. The world is a dangerous place for cottontail rabbits, and the odds are stacked against the eight babies my family has come to love. Aside from rabbits, my yard is also visited by red and gray foxes, opossums, raccoons, various hawks and owls, black rat snakes, and stray cats, among other predators. There aren’t many things that wouldn’t happily eat a baby cottontail.
The Safari Ltd. baby cottontail is not the kind of figure I would pursue for my own collection, but my daughter will certainly be thrilled to receive it, and I imagine the same is true for most kids. It’s also exceptionally lifelike to the point that it could work well in dioramas or for educational purposes. Plop it down in your lawn and someone might think it’s an actual baby rabbit! Hopefully Safari will someday produce a standard size adult cottontail for my own collection.
