What is the maximal age a Cape ground squirrel reaches?
An adult Cape ground squirrel (Xerus inauris) usually gets as old as 13 years.
Cape ground squirrels are around 48 days in the womb of their mother. When born, they weight 20 grams (0.04 lbs) and measure 11.1 cm (0′ 5″). As a member of the Sciuridae family (genus: Xerus), a Cape ground squirrel caries out around 2 little ones per pregnancy, which happens around 1 times a year. Fully grown, they reach a bodylength of 24.7 cm (0′ 10″).
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 Cape ground squirrel or South African ground squirrel (Xerus inauris) is found in most of the drier parts of southern Africa from South Africa, through to Botswana, and into Namibia, including Etosha National Park.The name Cape ground squirrel is somewhat misleading as it actually has a much wider area of habitation. This common name may have been arrived at to distinguish it from a tree squirrel (the eastern grey squirrel) found around Cape Town, which was imported from Europe by Cecil John Rhodes.
Animals of the same family as a Cape ground squirrel
Not really brothers and sisters, but from the same biological family (Sciuridae):
- White-tailed antelope squirrel becoming 5.75 years old
- Colorado chipmunk with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Panamint chipmunk with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Congo rope squirrel becoming 9.5 years old
- Perny’s long-nosed squirrel bringing the scale to 199 grams
- Samar squirrel bringing the scale to 225 grams
- Neotropical pygmy squirrel with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Bornean mountain ground squirrel bringing the scale to 130 grams
- Townsend’s chipmunk becoming 7 years old
- Complex-toothed flying squirrel becoming 12 years old
Animals that reach the same age as Cape ground squirrel
With an average age of 13 years, Cape ground squirrel are in good companionship of the following animals:
- Southern needle-clawed bushbaby usually reaching 15 years
- Grant’s gazelle usually reaching 12.67 years
- Fennec fox usually reaching 14.58 years
- African wild dog usually reaching 11 years
- Grey long-eared bat usually reaching 15 years
- Sable usually reaching 15 years
- Red-fronted gazelle usually reaching 13.5 years
- Ground cuscus usually reaching 12 years
- Yellow mongoose usually reaching 15.17 years
- Allied rock-wallaby usually reaching 13 years
Animals with the same number of babies Cape ground squirrel
The same number of babies at once (2) are born by:
- Littledale’s whistling rat
- Greenish yellow bat
- Yellow-spotted brush-furred rat
- European pine vole
- Red-legged sun squirrel
- Greater dwarf lemur
- Kellen’s dormouse
- Jaguarundi
- Leopard
- Striped polecat
Weighting as much as Cape ground squirrel
A fully grown Cape ground squirrel reaches around 572 grams (1.26 lbs). So do these animals:
- Rakali with 626 grams
- Central African oyan with 570 grams
- Bismarck giant rat with 612 grams
- Mauritian flying fox with 473 grams
- Banded linsang with 684 grams
- Short-tailed chinchilla with 499 grams
- Yellow-bellied glider with 568 grams
- Moustached tamarin with 557 grams
- Gray-backed sportive lemur with 506 grams
- Xerus erythropus with 602 grams
Animals as big as a Cape ground squirrel
Those animals grow as big as a Cape ground squirrel:
- Isabel naked-tailed rat with 27 cm (0′ 11″)
- Grey-bellied squirrel with 21.1 cm (0′ 9″)
- Tome’s spiny rat with 22.9 cm (0′ 10″)
- Northern glider with 25.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- Pousargues’s mongoose with 29 cm (1′ 0″)
- Eastern woodrat with 21.2 cm (0′ 9″)
- Buffy-tufted marmoset with 24 cm (0′ 10″)
- Grey-headed flying fox with 27.2 cm (0′ 11″)
- Sulawesi naked-backed fruit bat with 20.3 cm (0′ 8″)
- Large mosaic-tailed rat with 20.4 cm (0′ 9″)