How many baby Common shrews are in a litter?
A Common shrew (Sorex araneus) usually gives birth to around 6 babies.With 2 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 12 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 21 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 90 grams (0.2 lbs) and measure 2.5 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Soricidae family (genus: Sorex). An adult Common shrew grows up to a size of 7.3 cm (0′ 3″).
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 common shrew (Sorex araneus), also known as the Eurasian shrew, is the most common shrew, and one of the most common mammals, throughout Northern Europe, including Great Britain, but excluding Ireland. It is 55 to 82 millimetres (2.2 to 3.2 in) long and weighs 5 to 12 grams (0.2 to 0.4 oz), and has velvety dark brown fur with a pale underside. Juvenile shrews have lighter fur until their first moult. The common shrew has small eyes, a pointed, mobile snout and red-tipped teeth. It has a life span of approximately 14 months.Shrews are active day and night, taking short periods of rest between relatively long bursts of activity.
Other animals of the family Soricidae
Common shrew is a member of the Soricidae, as are these animals:
- Climbing shrew with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Taiwanese brown-toothed shrew with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Greater dwarf shrew with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Mexican shrew weighting only 11 grams
- Lesser gray-brown musk shrew with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Lesser white-toothed shrew with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Iberian shrew with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Preble’s shrew weighting only 3 grams
- Savanna dwarf shrew weighting only 6 grams
- Crosse’s shrew with 3 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Common shrew
Those animals also give birth to 6 babies at once:
- Eurasian pygmy shrew
- Perote ground squirrel
- Arctic ground squirrel
- Maximowicz’s vole
- Afghan pika
- Flat-haired mouse
- Julia Creek dunnart
- Alaskan hare
- Eligmodontia typus
- Northern quoll
Animals that get as old as a Common shrew
Other animals that usually reach the age of 2 years:
- Red-cheeked dunnart with 2 years
- Campbell’s dwarf hamster with 1.75 years
- Cinnamon antechinus with 2 years
- Feather-tailed possum with 2 years
- Long-tailed giant rat with 2 years
- Eurasian pygmy shrew with 2 years
- Silky anteater with 2.25 years
- McIlhenny’s four-eyed opossum with 2.25 years
- Fawn antechinus with 2.25 years
- Southern red-backed vole with 1.67 years
Animals with the same weight as a Common shrew
What other animals weight around 9 grams (0.02 lbs)?
- Arcuate horseshoe bat weighting 8 grams
- Spurrell’s free-tailed bat weighting 8 grams
- Mediterranean horseshoe bat weighting 9 grams
- Plains pocket mouse weighting 9 grams
- Kellen’s dormouse weighting 10 grams
- Natal long-fingered bat weighting 10 grams
- Antillean ghost-faced bat weighting 8 grams
- Southern pygmy mouse weighting 9 grams
- Arctic shrew weighting 8 grams
- Short-tailed shrew tenrec weighting 9 grams
Animals with the same size as a Common shrew
Also reaching around 7.3 cm (0′ 3″) in size do these animals:
- Least pygmy squirrel gets as big as 8.3 cm (0′ 4″)
- Wilson’s spiny mouse gets as big as 8 cm (0′ 4″)
- Nelson’s pocket mouse gets as big as 7.9 cm (0′ 4″)
- Meadow jumping mouse gets as big as 8.6 cm (0′ 4″)
- Natal multimammate mouse gets as big as 6 cm (0′ 3″)
- New Guinean jumping mouse gets as big as 8.1 cm (0′ 4″)
- Siberian large-toothed shrew gets as big as 7.1 cm (0′ 3″)
- Underwood’s long-tongued bat gets as big as 5.9 cm (0′ 3″)
- Townsend’s mole gets as big as 8.7 cm (0′ 4″)
- Common tube-nosed fruit bat gets as big as 8.2 cm (0′ 4″)