The Mexican cottontail was first described by the English naturalist George Robert Waterhouse in 1848 as part of his work in classifying specimens in the collection of the museum of the Zoological Society of London.

[5] The Mexicạn cottontail's breeding season occurs throughout the year, but especially during the warm and wet summer months (March to October).

It occupies a wide range of habitats including tropical, temperate and dry deciduous forest, dense shrubland, grassland and cultivated or otherwise disturbed land.

[1] In central Mexico it is quite common in pine and pine/oak forests with a ground cover of tussocky grasses such as Agrostis, Festuca and Muhlenbergia.

[8] Predators of the Mexican cottontail include red foxes, coyotes, the long-tailed weasel, feral dogs, the great horned owl, and the red-tailed hawk.