Major portions of the right hemisphere of conscious rabbit were stereotaxically mapped for auditory and nonauditory responsive regions. Extracellular activity was recorded from 101 auditory units. Acoustic stimuli were tone and white‐noise bursts, 130 ms in duration, with 5 ms rise/fall times, presented 1/s. A silastic earmold fitted to the rabbit's external auditory meatus positioned the earphone, sound measuring microphone, and calibrated probe tube assembly so as to direct the sound source as close as possible to the eardrum. Cells with well‐defined characteristic frequencies (CFs), ranging from 0.4 to 23 kHz. comprised approximately 60% of the population. Tuning curves were heterogeneous in shape. Latency of response onset ranged from 7 to 100 ms. Spontaneous rates less than 1 spike/s and up to 32 spikes/s were measured, and appeared to increase with cortical depth. A variety of temporal response patterns (PST histograms) were measured. Several units exhibited variable responses, such as occasional or inconsistent firing to stimulus presentations. Surgical procedures, sound delivery and recording techniques for unit recording in the conscious rabbit will be described. Characteristics of stimulus‐evoked and background activity will be compared with neuronal activity in auditory cortex previously reported in other species. [Work supported by NIH Grant No. 2R01 NS12317.]