Sylvilagus palustris
The marsh rabbit is a small cottontail rabbit found in marshes and swamps of coastal regions of the Eastern and Southern United States, from Virginia to the lower Florida Keys. Being a small brown rabbit, it is similar in appearance to the widespread eastern cottontail, but is characterized by its smaller ears, legs, and tail, as well as its grayish-brown underparts.

Peter Chen 2.0 · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- marsh rabbitPBDB
- Sits inside
- SylvilagusPBDB
- Diet
- grazer, browserPBDB, for Leporidae
- Life habit
- amphibiousPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 81 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 210 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka.
13 occurrences of Sylvilagus palustris on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
13 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
3 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Sylvilagus palustris has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 10 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Sylvilagus palustris and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Sylvilagus palustris and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
434 taxa- Equus12 sites
- Dasypus bellus11 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus10 sites
- Neofiber alleni9 sites
- Sylvilagus floridanus9 sites
- Tapirus (Helicotapirus) veroensis9 sites
- Oryzomys palustris8 sites
- Holmesina septentrionalis7 sites
- Mammut americanum7 sites
- Aenocyon dirus6 sites
- Didelphis virginiana6 sites
- Geomys pinetis6 sites
- Gopherus polyphemus6 sites
- Lynx rufus6 sites
- Neotoma floridana6 sites
- Procyon lotor6 sites
- Scalopus aquaticus6 sites
- Sigmodon hispidus6 sites
- Synaptomys australis6 sites
- Terrapene carolina6 sites
- Blarina carolinensis5 sites
- Hemiauchenia macrocephala5 sites
- Lontra canadensis5 sites
- Meleagris gallopavo5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Sylvilagus palustris, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
9 references- Chronology of Florida Pleistocene mammals4
- Cenozoic vertebrate biostratigraphy of South Carolina, U.S.A. and additions to the fauna2
- Vertebrate Paleontology1
- Pleistocene (Rancholabrean) vertebrate faunas from coastal Georgia1
- Middle Pleistocene (early Rancholabrean) vertebrates and associated marine and non-marine invertebrates from Oldsmar, Pinnellas County, Florida1
- Overview of the geology and vertebrate biochronology of the Leisey Shell Pit Local Fauna, Hillsborough County, Florida1
- Additions to the Pleistocene mammalian fauna from Melbourne, Florida1
- Pleistocene mammalian fauna of the Seminole Field, Pinellas County, Florida1
- Vertebrata mostly from Stratum No. 3, at Vero, Florida, together with descriptions of new species1
Each of the 13 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Sylvilagus palustris
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Peter Chen 2.0
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Sylvilagus palustris was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itSylvilagus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Bachman 1837)