A rabbit's eyes sit high on the sides of its head, so it can spot danger from almost any direction. Rabbits are one of the few mammals whose vision is not solely binocular. Their eyes sit on the sides of the head, which gives them a broad field of view: front, rear, upward and downward. A rabbit has a blind spot under its chin and in front of its nose; its retina has a much higher ratio of rods to cones than a human retina, so it sees better than a person in dim light, but the dim-light picture is grainy. Rabbits also have limited color vision: they can tell green from blue, probably with two kinds of cone cells, but they do not see color as people do.

A rabbit's big ears do more than listen. The ears are also a cooling system: they are highly vascular and make up about 12 percent of a rabbit's body surface, and a counter-current heat exchange system helps them regulate body temperature. A rabbit can move each of its big ears on its own to find where a sound is coming from. Ears close together, upright and pointing outward mean a relaxed rabbit, but ears flat against the back mean a worried one. Many rabbits and hares have white fur under the tail, which they silently flash to warn others that a predator is near. A rabbit may also thump its back feet on the ground to warn of danger.

Rabbits eat only plants, and in winter, cottontails eat bark, twigs and buds; carrots are only an occasional treat for a rabbit, not its main food. A rabbit has two pairs of upper front teeth, a big pair with a small peg tooth behind each, while a rodent has only one pair. The front teeth never stop growing, at about 2 to 3 millimeters every week, which is why a pet rabbit needs hay: chewing it grinds the teeth down side to side. Black-tailed jackrabbits live in dry places and get nearly all the water they need from the plants they eat.

Plants are full of cellulose and lignin, which mammals cannot digest on their own. A rabbit relies on a cecum up to ten times longer than its stomach, full of microbes that break these fibers down; rabbits make soft cecotrophs mostly in the morning and evening, about four hours after feeding, and they eat them to get extra nutrients. Scientists have suggested that rabbits and hares began re-eating soft droppings partly so they could stay safe inside burrows while still getting enough nutrients.

A jackrabbit is not a rabbit but a hare; hares and rabbits have hind legs much longer than their forelegs, which lets them run in a zigzag that makes it harder for a chaser to follow. Hares tend to outrun trouble; rabbits tend to dash for cover or a burrow. A black-tailed jackrabbit can spring 20 feet in one bound and reach 30 to 35 miles per hour on a zigzag course, which is much faster than a cottontail. The snowshoe hare, a close relative of rabbits, changes color with the seasons, and its numbers swing wildly: their density can go from 1 to 10,000 hares per square mile.

Some wild rabbits live in underground homes called warrens, where rabbits live in groups. A typical group has six to ten adults, and a big warren can hold up to 30 rabbits and spread across two acres or more. A cottontail mother scrapes a shallow dip in the ground for her nest instead of digging a burrow, and she lines her nest with grass and her own fur. She stays away from it most of the day and visits only briefly to feed her babies. Young cottontails are on their own when they are about a month old. An eastern cottontail mother usually has two to four litters a year, and most wild eastern cottontails live only two or three years.

Every domestic rabbit, in about 80 varieties, descends from the European rabbit, Oryctolagus cuniculus; because of people, European rabbits now live in the wild on every continent except Asia and Antarctica, although the last Ice Age had left them only in Iberia and nearby areas. Settlers brought the eastern cottontail to New England before 1900, and as of November 2026, the native New England cottontail's numbers have been steadily declining because it competes with the eastern cottontail, which uses many of the same resources and habitats. As of November 2026, in Washington State's Columbia Basin, the remaining pygmy rabbit population is endangered. Its shrub-steppe home has been broken up and wildfires have increased.

A hutch alone is not enough for a pet rabbit. It needs room to move, play, exercise and hide: at least 3 by 2 by 1 meters, about 10 by 6.5 by 3 feet. Pet rabbits eat mostly hay and should eat only a few pellets. They need other rabbits for company, and two pet rabbits should meet slowly, on neutral ground. They also need toys they can chew and dig in, and a rabbit loose in a room must be kept safe from chewing electrical cords. A rabbit has a fragile backbone, so it must be held gently and kept from struggling. A pet rabbit can live for 8 to 12 years and needs a lot of time and care.

Words to know

• binocular: two-eyed overlapping view
• vascular: full of vessels
• cecotrophs: soft droppings
• domestic: kept by people