How many baby Black-shouldered opossums are in a litter?
A Black-shouldered opossum (Caluromysiops irrupta) usually gives birth to around 2 babies.
Upon birth, they weight 2 grams (0 lbs) and measure 1 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Didelphidae family (genus: Caluromysiops). An adult Black-shouldered opossum grows up to a size of 23.4 cm (0′ 10″).
To have a reference: Humans obviously usually have a litter size of one ;). Their babies are in the womb of their mother for 280 days (40 weeks) and reach an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″). They weight in at 62 kg (137 lbs), which is obviously highly individual, and reach an average age of 75 years.
The black-shouldered opossum (Caluromysiops irrupta), also known as the white-eared opossum is an opossum known from western Brazil and southeastern Peru. It was first described by Colin Campbell Sanborn, curator of Field Museum of Natural History, in 1951. The black-shouldered opossum is characterized by a gray coat, gray underbelly, and broad black stripes that extend from the forefeet, meet on the shoulders, run along the midline of the back and then split into parallel stripes that run down the hindfeet. Little is known of the behavior of the black-shouldered opossum. It is nocturnal (active mainly at night) and arboreal (tree-living); it is known to feed on fruits and rodents. The opossum inhabits humid forests. The IUCN classifies it as least concern.
Other animals of the family Didelphidae
Black-shouldered opossum is a member of the Didelphidae, as are these animals:
- Water opossum with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Handley’s slender opossum weighting only 30 grams
- Little woolly mouse opossum raching a size of 13.7 cm (0′ 6″)
- Emilia’s gracile opossum weighting only 7 grams
- Neblina slender opossum raching a size of 12.3 cm (0′ 5″)
- Northern gracile opossum with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Chacoan pygmy opossum raching a size of 8.9 cm (0′ 4″)
- Narrow-headed slender opossum weighting only 26 grams
- Bushy-tailed opossum weighting only 114 grams
- Bishop’s slender opossum raching a size of 10.3 cm (0′ 5″)
Animals that share a litter size with Black-shouldered opossum
Those animals also give birth to 2 babies at once:
- Marsh rabbit
- Armored rat
- Gray-bellied tree mouse
- Cinereus ringtail possum
- Golden bandicoot
- Small-toothed palm civet
- Wilson’s spiny mouse
- Cougar
- Savi’s pipistrelle
- Blanford’s rat
Animals that get as old as a Black-shouldered opossum
Other animals that usually reach the age of 7.83 years:
- Island fox with 8 years
- Gray dorcopsis with 8 years
- Siberian weasel with 8.83 years
- Townsend’s chipmunk with 7 years
- Yellow-bellied marmot with 8 years
- Yuma myotis with 8.75 years
- Rufous rat-kangaroo with 8 years
- White-tailed jackrabbit with 8 years
- Pallid bat with 9.08 years
- Tropical pocket gopher with 7 years
Animals with the same weight as a Black-shouldered opossum
What other animals weight around 258 grams (0.57 lbs)?
- Southern needle-clawed bushbaby weighting 296 grams
- Luzon broad-toothed rat weighting 268 grams
- Plantain squirrel weighting 210 grams
- Underwood’s pocket gopher weighting 250 grams
- Roberto’s spiny rat weighting 284 grams
- Sulawesi naked-backed fruit bat weighting 301 grams
- Short-tailed spiny rat weighting 284 grams
- Banks flying fox weighting 210 grams
- Sierra Madre ground squirrel weighting 207 grams
- White-toothed tuco-tuco weighting 244 grams
Animals with the same size as a Black-shouldered opossum
Also reaching around 23.4 cm (0′ 10″) in size do these animals:
- Palawan flying squirrel gets as big as 22 cm (0′ 9″)
- Three-striped dasyure gets as big as 19.1 cm (0′ 8″)
- Big-eared flying fox gets as big as 21.1 cm (0′ 9″)
- Brandt’s hedgehog gets as big as 20.7 cm (0′ 9″)
- Common gundi gets as big as 20.8 cm (0′ 9″)
- Pallas’s squirrel gets as big as 21.1 cm (0′ 9″)
- Lesser flying fox gets as big as 19 cm (0′ 8″)
- Sulawesi naked-backed fruit bat gets as big as 20.3 cm (0′ 8″)
- Bioko Allen’s bushbaby gets as big as 20 cm (0′ 8″)
- Ceram fruit bat gets as big as 20.2 cm (0′ 8″)