How many baby California ground squirrels are in a litter?
A California ground squirrel (Spermophilus beecheyi) usually gives birth to around 6 babies.With 1 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 6 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 28 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 9 grams (0.02 lbs) and measure 5.6 cm (0′ 3″). They are a member of the Sciuridae family (genus: Spermophilus). An adult California ground squirrel grows up to a size of 21.9 cm (0′ 9″).
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 California ground squirrel (Otospermophilus beecheyi), also known as the Beechey ground squirrel, is a common and easily observed ground squirrel of the western United States and the Baja California Peninsula; it is common in Oregon and California and its range has relatively recently extended into Washington and northwestern Nevada. Formerly placed in Spermophilus, as Spermophilus beecheyi, it was reclassified in Otospermophilus in 2009 as it became clear that Spermophilus as previously defined was not a natural (monophyletic) group. A full species account was published for this species in 2016.
Other animals of the family Sciuridae
California ground squirrel is a member of the Sciuridae, as are these animals:
- Washington ground squirrel with 7 babies per pregnancy
- Bangs’s mountain squirrel raching a size of 16.2 cm (0′ 7″)
- Borneo black-banded squirrel with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Baja California rock squirrel weighting only 551 grams
- Indian giant squirrel weighting around 1.06 kilograms (2.34 lbs)
- Whiskered flying squirrel with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Perny’s long-nosed squirrel weighting only 199 grams
- Western dwarf squirrel weighting only 120 grams
- Mexican fox squirrel with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Gray marmot with 5 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with California ground squirrel
Those animals also give birth to 6 babies at once:
- Northern quoll
- Steppe mouse
- Harris’s antelope squirrel
- Uinta chipmunk
- Eurasian water shrew
- Flat-headed vole
- Mindoro black rat
- Julia Creek dunnart
- Crest-tailed mulgara
- Afghan pika
Animals that get as old as a California ground squirrel
Other animals that usually reach the age of 5 years:
- Black rat with 4.17 years
- Central African oyan with 5.33 years
- Guyenne spiny rat with 4.75 years
- Gray short-tailed opossum with 6 years
- Eurasian harvest mouse with 5 years
- Eastern barred bandicoot with 5.5 years
- Euphrates jerboa with 4.17 years
- Southeastern myotis with 6 years
- Cave nectar bat with 5 years
- Brown-tailed mongoose with 4.75 years
Animals with the same weight as a California ground squirrel
What other animals weight around 598 grams (1.32 lbs)?
- Malayan weasel weighting 569 grams
- Ashy-headed flying fox weighting 524 grams
- Ryukyu flying fox weighting 491 grams
- Peters’s squirrel weighting 650 grams
- Baja California rock squirrel weighting 551 grams
- Numbat weighting 517 grams
- Painted ringtail possum weighting 642 grams
- Long-tailed chinchilla weighting 480 grams
- Bismarck giant rat weighting 612 grams
- Giant tree-rat weighting 584 grams