The bunyoro rabbit was first properly described in 1929 as Lepus marjorita or the "grass hare"[3] by Jane St. Leger,[4] a British mammalogist who worked with Oldfield Thomas.

[5][6] Four years earlier, it was misidentified by Geoffrey Douglas Hale Carpenter,[7] who discovered a colony of the species and assumed them to be the feral descendants of European rabbits introduced to the region by Emin Pasha.

[8] The original description of the rabbit was as a "hare" that was part of a collection of mammals sent to the British Museum from the Protectorate of Uganda by Charles Pitman, the game warden.

Two synonyms of the species exist,[13] both of which were proposed subspecies with minor differences in fur color and skull morphology:[1][9] The bunyoro rabbit's closest phylogenetic relations are with the red rock hares (Pronolagus).

[16] The Bunyoro rabbit is nocturnal, hiding alone during the day in a form in dense vegetation or a hole among rocks and coming out to feed as part of a group at night.

It prefers the succulent young shoots that sprout from the ground after land has been cleared or burned, and tends towards pastures that are already grazed by larger mammals.

[16] Breeding seems to occur at any time of year, as indicated by records of newborn and juvenile rabbits in January, February, March, May, June, August, and October.

[11] The gestation period is about five weeks and one or two young are born in a breeding hole, the entrance of which is loosely blocked with soil or grass.