How many baby Daurian pikas are in a litter?
A Daurian pika (Ochotona dauurica) usually gives birth to around 5 babies.With 2 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 10 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 30 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 11 grams (0.02 lbs) and measure 5.7 cm (0′ 3″). They are a member of the Ochotonidae family (genus: Ochotona). An adult Daurian pika grows up to a size of 18 cm (0′ 8″).
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 Daurian pika (Ochotona dauurica) is a small relative of rabbits and hares in the order Lagomorpha. It is well known for its “barking” alarm call, and for its peculiar habit of making hay to help survive the winter. There are 4 recognized subspecies, Ochotona dauurica annectens, O.d. bedfordi, O.d. dauurica, and O.d. mursavi. Daurian pikas, like other lagomorphs, are characterized by a secondary set of incisor teeth. They are sexually monomorphic, with thick reddish coats. Pikas have no external tail, and their ears are large and rounded. The auditory bullae, a feature of the skull of daurian pikas are small in comparison to many other pikas. This is thought to be related to their fairly low altitude habitat preference. They are considered keystone species within their habitat.
Other animals of the family Ochotonidae
Daurian pika is a member of the Ochotonidae, as are these animals:
- Nubra pika raching a size of 7.5 cm (0′ 3″)
- Collared pika with 3 babies per pregnancy
- American pika with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Ladak pika raching a size of 17.7 cm (0′ 7″)
- Tsing-ling pika weighting only 105 grams
- Chinese red pika raching a size of 24.5 cm (0′ 10″)
- Pallas’s pika with 7 babies per pregnancy
- Royle’s pika with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Large-eared pika with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Turkestan red pika with 4 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Daurian pika
Those animals also give birth to 5 babies at once:
- Asian garden dormouse
- Natal multimammate mouse
- Red wolf
- Little Indian field mouse
- Southern white-breasted hedgehog
- Piebald shrew
- Caucasian snow vole
- Golden-mantled ground squirrel
- Kowari
- Persian jird
Animals with the same weight as a Daurian pika
What other animals weight around 131 grams (0.29 lbs)?
- Magdalena rat weighting 130 grams
- Rajah spiny rat weighting 150 grams
- Black-tailed tree rat weighting 125 grams
- Mountain viscacha rat weighting 124 grams
- Leadbeater’s possum weighting 137 grams
- Island tube-nosed fruit bat weighting 107 grams
- Isarog shrew-rat weighting 122 grams
- Lorentz’s mosaic-tailed rat weighting 150 grams
- Vinogradov’s jird weighting 117 grams
- Bornean mountain ground squirrel weighting 130 grams
Animals with the same size as a Daurian pika
Also reaching around 18 cm (0′ 8″) in size do these animals:
- Sikkim rat gets as big as 18.9 cm (0′ 8″)
- Smoky pocket gopher gets as big as 19.2 cm (0′ 8″)
- Gambian sun squirrel gets as big as 19.6 cm (0′ 8″)
- Collared pika gets as big as 18.8 cm (0′ 8″)
- Fly River water rat gets as big as 14.6 cm (0′ 6″)
- Hastings River mouse gets as big as 16 cm (0′ 7″)
- Richmond’s squirrel gets as big as 19.4 cm (0′ 8″)
- Cape York rat gets as big as 18.9 cm (0′ 8″)
- Long-footed rat gets as big as 15.7 cm (0′ 7″)
- Least weasel gets as big as 18.9 cm (0′ 8″)