Swamp Rabbit
Louisiana’s largest cottontail lives close to water, swims readily, and hides in dense floodplain cover where most observers see only tracks or a bounding tail.
Artwork inspired by Richard Clague
Swamp rabbits are substantially larger and darker than eastern cottontails, with shorter-looking ears and a preference for floodplain forest, swamp margins, cane, and dense wet thickets. They can cross water to escape and may rest on logs, stumps, or elevated debris during floods, but they do not live as aquatic animals.
Search at quiet edges near dawn or dusk for clipped vegetation, large rounded pellets, tracks, and short runs through cover. Flood cycles shape where rabbits feed and shelter, while clearing, channelization, and loss of dense understory reduce habitat. If one freezes beside a trail, stop rather than advancing until it bolts; forced flight wastes energy and may send it toward roads or deep water.
- Relative size
- Largest U.S. cottontail
- Special ability
- Strong swimmer
- Best habitat
- Dense wet floodplain cover
Quick guide
- Compare
- Darker, heavier than eastern cottontail
- Search
- Raised edges after floods
Recognize it in the field
- Judge proportions
- Look for the body looks heavy and ears relatively short compared with drier-country rabbits when identifying Swamp Rabbit.
- Use the setting
- Check water, cane, bottomland hardwoods, and flood debris support the identification together with raised edges after floods before accepting the identification.
- Read sign
- Use Bottomland hardwoods, swamps, cane breaks, and floodplain thickets in Pearl River bottomland forest, Louisiana as habitat context and check Year-round; most active around dusk, night, and dawn.
- Pause for a frozen rabbit
- Give it room to choose cover instead of pushing it into a dangerous sprint.
Good to know
Swamp rabbits can enter water voluntarily and swim with only the head visible, a behavior that inspired a famous 1979 encounter involving President Jimmy Carter. That anecdote should not obscure the practical clue: a very large cottontail in wet bottomland is built for floods.
Notice these
- Heavy dark body
- Short rounded ears
- Floodplain swimming