How many baby Alston’s cotton rats are in a litter?
A Alston’s cotton rat (Sigmodon alstoni) usually gives birth to around 5 babies.With 5 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 25 babies.
Upon birth, they weight 15 kg (33.07 lbs) and measure 1.6 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Sigmodon). An adult Alston’s cotton rat grows up to a size of 18.5 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.
Alston’s cotton rat (Sigmodon alstoni) is a rodent species from South America. It is found in Brazil, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela, where it inhabits lowland savannas.
Other animals of the family Muridae
Alston’s cotton rat is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- African smoky mouse weighting only 17 grams
- Ghana rufous-nosed rat weighting only 85 grams
- Yellow-bellied brush-furred rat with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Arizona cotton rat weighting only 198 grams
- Steppe field mouse weighting only 20 grams
- Microryzomys altissimus weighting only 13 grams
- Colombian forest mouse weighting only 19 grams
- Rümmler’s brush mouse weighting only 29 grams
- Malayan tree rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Chinanteco deer mouse weighting only 40 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Alston’s cotton rat
Those animals also give birth to 5 babies at once:
- Wood lemming
- Garden dormouse
- Common degu
- Olive grass mouse
- Edible dormouse
- Pacific jumping mouse
- Lowland streaked tenrec
- Sandhill dunnart
- Dark bolo mouse
- Social vole
Animals with the same weight as a Alston’s cotton rat
What other animals weight around 55 grams (0.12 lbs)?
- Crete spiny mouse weighting 62 grams
- Peters’s striped mouse weighting 54 grams
- Himalayan striped squirrel weighting 45 grams
- Euryoryzomys russatus weighting 60 grams
- Natal multimammate mouse weighting 62 grams
- Michoacan deer mouse weighting 49 grams
- Hairy-tailed mole weighting 51 grams
- Northern smooth-tailed treeshrew weighting 50 grams
- Agile kangaroo rat weighting 60 grams
- Antillean fruit-eating bat weighting 45 grams