How many baby Yellow ground squirrels are in a litter?
A Yellow ground squirrel (Spermophilus fulvus) usually gives birth to around 5 babies.With 1 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 5 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 30 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 Yellow ground squirrel grows up to a size of 24.5 cm (0′ 10″).
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 yellow ground squirrel (Spermophilus fulvus) is a large and sturdy ground squirrel species native to Afghanistan, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Russia. It inhabits sandy steppes with Artemisia, glasswort and tamarisk.The yellow ground squirrel has naked soles on the hind feet excluding heels. It is strictly diurnal and forages mainly in the morning when the vegetation is still damp. lives a very gregarious lifestyle in large colonies. Diet includes bulbs, seeds, stems and leaves. Like many other ground squirrels it hibernates, but it may also aestivate.
Other animals of the family Sciuridae
Yellow ground squirrel is a member of the Sciuridae, as are these animals:
- Plantain squirrel with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Mexican gray squirrel with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Thomas’s rope squirrel with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Yellow-throated squirrel weighting only 803 grams
- Nilgiri striped squirrel with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Siberian flying squirrel with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Hopi chipmunk weighting only 53 grams
- Yellow-bellied marmot with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Franklin’s ground squirrel with 9 babies per pregnancy
- Cream-coloured giant squirrel weighting around 1.16 kilograms (2.56 lbs)
Animals that share a litter size with Yellow ground squirrel
Those animals also give birth to 5 babies at once:
- Western quoll
- Caucasian snow vole
- American water shrew
- Christy’s dormouse
- Gray marmot
- Zarudny’s rock shrew
- Cliff chipmunk
- Northern red-backed vole
- Meadow jumping mouse
- Northern red-backed vole
Animals with the same weight as a Yellow ground squirrel
What other animals weight around 779 grams (1.72 lbs)?
- Long-nosed bandicoot weighting 720 grams
- Central American squirrel monkey weighting 714 grams
- Gunnison’s prairie dog weighting 798 grams
- Moonrat weighting 787 grams
- Angolan kusimanse weighting 700 grams
- Maned rat weighting 755 grams
- Northern Amazon red squirrel weighting 700 grams
- Striped polecat weighting 812 grams
- Black-footed tree-rat weighting 716 grams
- Painted ringtail possum weighting 639 grams