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Travel A road trip in Burgundy reveals far more than fine wine. Travel My Hometown In L. Subscriber Exclusive Content. Why are people so dang obsessed with Mars? How viruses shape our world. The era of greyhound racing in the U. Predation by coyotes and humans also has contributed to the species' decline. What do jackrabbits look like? Jackrabbits are actually hares, not rabbits. The black-tailed jackrabbit is long-legged and lean, about inches, and weighs pounds.
Its fur is buff-colored to blend in with the arid environment. Its relatively long tail has a black stripe, and its long brown ears have black tips.
The white-tailed jackrabbit is inches long and weighs pounds. It is a brownish gray color in the summer and white or pale gray in the winter. Its tail is nearly always white. How do jackrabbits live? Jackrabbits are primarily nocturnal and come alive as night falls. They may lie crouched in "forms" they've made in the grass by using the same spot many times. On warm days they relax in the shade of a small bush or fence post and spend the day snoozing and grooming themselves. They feed mostly on needle-and-threadgrass, yarrow, turpentine springparsley, and tumblemustard.
They depend heavily on shrubs such as sagebrush for protective cover. Jackrabbits are a sagebrush obligate species, meaning they need sagebrush to survive. Black-tailed jackrabbits are the principal prey of golden eagles and are an important food source for coyotes, common ravens, the great horned owl, long-eared owl, barn owl, ferruginous hawk, Swainson's hawk, and red-tailed hawk. Humans also are a predator of jackrabbits.
Their diet consists primarily of forbs during summer months and shrubs in the winter. How are jackrabbits adapted to life in the shrub-steppe? During hot summer days, jackrabbits sit in the shade with their ears flattened against their backs. This not only makes them hard to see, but helps keep them cool as blood passes into their ears, and their entire bodies are cooled by the breeze. Jackrabbits have a special set of smaller sharp teeth behind their bigger front teeth, which helps them snip plants and twigs.
These teeth are unique to hares and rabbits. Jackrabbits also possess a special digestive system adapted to the shrub-steppe. They digest their food twice, which allows them to eat a lot of different kinds of vegetation.
Other protective adaptations include keen senses of smell, eyesight, and hearing. The jackrabbits' large strong hind legs help them outrun prey.
Diet The black-tailed jackrabbit rests during the day and feeds in the late afternoon and the night. In the summer it eats a wide-variety of green plants. A favorite food is alfalfa. In the winter it eats dried and woody plants. The black-tailed jackrabbit gets most of the water it needs from the plants it eats.
Life Cycle The black-tailed jackrabbit mates year-round. Males and females will leap after and chase each other during mating season. The female black-tailed jackrabbit can have as many as four litters a year.
The young are born in a fur-filled depression.
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