What is the maximal age a Monito del monte reaches?
An adult Monito del monte (Dromiciops gliroides) usually gets as old as 3.17 years.
When born, they weight 579 grams (1.28 lbs) and measure 4 cm (0′ 2″). As a member of the Microbiotheriidae family (genus: Dromiciops), their offspring is 3 babies per pregnancy. Fully grown, they reach a bodylength of 10.5 cm (0′ 5″).
As a reference: Usually, humans get as old as 100 years, with the average being around 75 years. After being carried in the belly of their mother for 280 days (40 weeks), they grow to an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″) and weight in at 62 kg (137 lbs), which is obviously highly individual.
The monito del monte (Spanish for “little monkey of the mount”) or colocolo opossum, Dromiciops gliroides, also called chumaihuén in Mapudungun, is a diminutive marsupial native only to southwestern South America (Argentina and Chile). It is the only extant species in the ancient order Microbiotheria, and the sole New World representative of the superorder Australidelphia (all other New World marsupials are members of the paraphyletic “Ameridelphia”). The species is nocturnal and arboreal, and lives in thickets of South American mountain bamboo in the Valdivian temperate rain forests of the southern Andes, aided by its partially prehensile tail. It eats primarily insects and other small invertebrates, supplemented with fruit.
Animals that reach the same age as Monito del monte
With an average age of 3.17 years, Monito del monte are in good companionship of the following animals:
- Small Japanese mole usually reaching 3.5 years
- Arctic lemming usually reaching 3.75 years
- African pygmy mouse usually reaching 3.08 years
- Lowland streaked tenrec usually reaching 2.67 years
- Cape mole-rat usually reaching 3 years
- Broad-footed mole usually reaching 3 years
- Four-striped grass mouse usually reaching 2.83 years
- Coast mole usually reaching 3 years
- Southern brown bandicoot usually reaching 3.75 years
- Lutrine opossum usually reaching 3 years
Animals with the same number of babies Monito del monte
The same number of babies at once (3) are born by:
- Griselda’s striped grass mouse
- Greater red musk shrew
- White-tailed rat
- Gray climbing mouse
- Juniper vole
- Oligoryzomys nigripes
- Eastern red bat
- Altai birch mouse
- Black-footed ferret
- Lesser red musk shrew
Weighting as much as Monito del monte
A fully grown Monito del monte reaches around 25 grams (0.06 lbs). So do these animals:
- Tschudi’s yellow-shouldered bat with 21 grams
- California pocket mouse with 23 grams
- Ningbing false antechinus with 20 grams
- Nigerian free-tailed bat with 20 grams
- Brown antechinus with 29 grams
- Zacatecan deer mouse with 27 grams
- Dune hairy-footed gerbil with 29 grams
- Wood mouse with 21 grams
- Greater round-eared bat with 27 grams
- Davis’s round-eared bat with 20 grams
Animals as big as a Monito del monte
Those animals grow as big as a Monito del monte:
- De Winton’s golden mole with 9 cm (0′ 4″)
- Soft-furred Oldfield mouse with 11.2 cm (0′ 5″)
- Northern caenolestid with 10.6 cm (0′ 5″)
- Creeping vole with 9.9 cm (0′ 4″)
- Malagasy mouse-eared bat with 9.5 cm (0′ 4″)
- Desert mouse with 8.8 cm (0′ 4″)
- Western jumping mouse with 9.4 cm (0′ 4″)
- Ghost bat with 11.5 cm (0′ 5″)
- Himalayan shrew with 9.8 cm (0′ 4″)
- Yucatan deer mouse with 10 cm (0′ 4″)