Non urgent question about wild/domestic interbreeding

Question
I am in a discussion regarding whether or not a feral domestic rabbit could breed with, say, a cottontail. Some say no in North America, but yes in Europe because that's where the domestic rabbit originated.

Answer
Dear Mary,

A domestic rabbit in Europe can successfully breed with a wild rabbit there because they are the same species (Oryctolagus cuniculus), despite their superficial differences in appearance.

In North America, however, our wild, native rabbits are in the genus Sylvilagus (several different species, and the one you have depends on where you are).  They cannot interbreed with domestic rabbits.  I live with both, since we have many happy cottontails in our back yard sanctuary.  Although the two species live side by side and keep company quite contentedly, they show absolutely no sexual interest in each other.  (All our domestic rabbits are spayed/neutered, but the females keep their ovaries, so have not lost all their sex drive.)

We also have jackrabbits, in the genus Lepus.  The domestics and jackrabbits get along fine, but they are not sexually interested in each other.

Interestingly, we had a cottie long ago who had a wild crush on all the jackrabbits!  He would lope after them, singing his little sexy love song.  They would run from him, obviously amused or annoyed, since they were doing head binkies as they ran, and would playfully stay *juuuuust* out of his reach until they tired of the game and took off at 45mph.  

But there is very little chance that a cottontail could successfully produce offspring with a hare, even if they mated.  (Lyle never did get lucky.)

Even if they did mate, it is not likely they could produce fertile, viable offspring, as their genomes diverged quite a long time ago.

Hope that helps.

Dana