How many baby Dune hairy-footed gerbils are in a litter?
A Dune hairy-footed gerbil (Gerbillurus tytonis) usually gives birth to around 4 babies.
Upon birth, they weight 1 grams (0 lbs) and measure 3.4 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Gerbillurus). An adult Dune hairy-footed gerbil grows up to a size of 9.9 cm (0′ 4″).
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 dune hairy-footed gerbil, or the Namib dune gerbil (Gerbillurus tytonis) is a species of gerbil found only in Namibia. Its natural habitat is temperate desert where it lives in loose sand among sand dunes, feeding opportunistically on arthropods, seeds and green vegetation.
Other animals of the family Muridae
Dune hairy-footed gerbil is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Dollman’s tree mouse weighting only 12 grams
- Montane Oldfield mouse weighting only 77 grams
- Western water rat raching a size of 15.1 cm (0′ 6″)
- Littledale’s whistling rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Hairy harvest mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Sulawesi giant rat weighting only 325 grams
- Northwestern deer mouse raching a size of 9.3 cm (0′ 4″)
- Dollman’s melomys raching a size of 13.1 cm (0′ 6″)
- White-tailed antsangy weighting only 205 grams
- Notiomys weighting only 21 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Dune hairy-footed gerbil
Those animals also give birth to 4 babies at once:
- Plateau pika
- Wolf
- Chestnut white-bellied rat
- American red squirrel
- Llanos long-nosed armadillo
- Lodgepole chipmunk
- Black-tailed gerbil
- Southern big-eared mouse
- Tondano rat
- Zagros Mountains mouse-like hamster
Animals with the same weight as a Dune hairy-footed gerbil
What other animals weight around 29 grams (0.06 lbs)?
- Barbary striped grass mouse weighting 26 grams
- Scolomys ucayalensis weighting 26 grams
- Selangor pygmy flying squirrel weighting 30 grams
- Serra do Mar grass mouse weighting 28 grams
- Winter white dwarf hamster weighting 30 grams
- Monito del monte weighting 25 grams
- Bastard big-footed mouse weighting 28 grams
- Somali elephant shrew weighting 32 grams
- Akodon azarae weighting 25 grams
- Dragon tube-nosed fruit bat weighting 30 grams
Animals with the same size as a Dune hairy-footed gerbil
Also reaching around 9.9 cm (0′ 4″) in size do these animals:
- Sandstone false antechinus gets as big as 9.6 cm (0′ 4″)
- Philippine tarsier gets as big as 11.7 cm (0′ 5″)
- Typical striped grass mouse gets as big as 10.2 cm (0′ 5″)
- Blue-gray mouse gets as big as 8.8 cm (0′ 4″)
- Salim Ali’s fruit bat gets as big as 10.6 cm (0′ 5″)
- Northern groove-toothed shrew mouse gets as big as 8.1 cm (0′ 4″)
- Mountain pygmy possum gets as big as 11.4 cm (0′ 5″)
- Long-nosed caenolestid gets as big as 11.3 cm (0′ 5″)
- New Guinean jumping mouse gets as big as 8.1 cm (0′ 4″)
- Eurasian water shrew gets as big as 8.1 cm (0′ 4″)