How many baby Rajah spiny rats are in a litter?
A Rajah spiny rat (Maxomys rajah) usually gives birth to around 3 babies.
Upon birth, they weight 1 grams (0 lbs) and measure 1.5 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Maxomys). An adult Rajah spiny rat grows up to a size of 16.7 cm (0′ 7″).
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 Rajah spiny rat (Maxomys rajah) also known as the brown spiny rat is endemic to Thailand and Malaysia, Sumatra, Borneo and the adjacent islands (Payne et al., 1985). Corbet and Hill (1992) mention that Maxomys rats are often the most common rodent in the Southeast Asian tropical forest, from most of the Malay Archipelago to Sulawesi, Palawan and Borneo. This species can be found in primary forest and logged-over forest. According to Payne et al.,(1985) this species lives in primary or secondary forest and tends to favour sandy and lowland sites. This terrestrial species is mostly active on the ground but occasionally climbs into the upper canopy. Its tend to live separately from other rats.M. rajah is medium in size where the upperparts are brown, darker in the midline, with numerous stiff gray-brown spines. The underparts are white with many short, white spines, and usually with a dark brown streak along the middle in adults, but never with an orange throat patch. The white color of the underparts extend down in a narrow line to the feet. Above the tail is brown, pale below and thinly haired. Usually, the range of the measurement of M. rajah are HB 138.1-218, T 142-210, T/HB = 102.9-109.3%, HF 33.8-43, E 21.9-22.3, Wt 71-218 g, D 1003/1003=16, M 2+2=8. Skull: gl 40.9-48.6, iob 6.6-7.4, mt 6.9-8.1.The immature Red Spiny Rats, M. surifer is similar M. rajah and quite difficult to distinguish. (Payne et al., 1985).M.rajah is a common species but Yasuda et al., (2000) reported that very little is known about the ecological features of Maxomys rats.
Other animals of the family Muridae
Rajah spiny rat is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Sakhalin vole with 7 babies per pregnancy
- Moncton’s mosaic-tailed rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Northern bog lemming with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Bagobo rat weighting only 395 grams
- Large mosaic-tailed rat with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Sula rat weighting only 131 grams
- Cloud forest grass mouse weighting only 39 grams
- Wolffsohn’s leaf-eared mouse weighting only 42 grams
- Gray-bellied pencil-tailed tree mouse weighting only 28 grams
- Pygmy rock mouse with 2 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Rajah spiny rat
Those animals also give birth to 3 babies at once:
- Polynesian rat
- Eastern red bat
- Hoary bamboo rat
- Dark-tailed tree rat
- Chestnut climbing mouse
- Andean mountain cavy
- Celebes warty pig
- Northern collared lemming
- Peters’s mouse
- Red rock rat
Animals with the same weight as a Rajah spiny rat
What other animals weight around 150 grams (0.33 lbs)?
- Brants’s whistling rat weighting 129 grams
- Sugar glider weighting 120 grams
- Attwater’s pocket gopher weighting 144 grams
- Blick’s grass rat weighting 128 grams
- Mindoro striped rat weighting 152 grams
- American pika weighting 158 grams
- Manus Island mosaic-tailed rat weighting 144 grams
- Thirteen-lined ground squirrel weighting 175 grams
- Sangihe tarsier weighting 165 grams
- Harris’s antelope squirrel weighting 127 grams
Animals with the same size as a Rajah spiny rat
Also reaching around 16.7 cm (0′ 7″) in size do these animals:
- Northern pika gets as big as 16 cm (0′ 7″)
- Botta’s pocket gopher gets as big as 15.6 cm (0′ 7″)
- Lesser Angolan epauletted fruit bat gets as big as 16.2 cm (0′ 7″)
- Franquet’s epauletted fruit bat gets as big as 13.5 cm (0′ 6″)
- Large mole gets as big as 14.9 cm (0′ 6″)
- Hairy-tailed bolo mouse gets as big as 14.4 cm (0′ 6″)
- Broad-toothed mouse gets as big as 16.6 cm (0′ 7″)
- Long-tailed hopping mouse gets as big as 13.8 cm (0′ 6″)
- Crest-tailed mulgara gets as big as 17.5 cm (0′ 7″)
- Spotted ground squirrel gets as big as 14.5 cm (0′ 6″)