How many baby Cape ground squirrels are in a litter?
A Cape ground squirrel (Xerus inauris) usually gives birth to around 2 babies.With 1 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 2 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 48 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 20 grams (0.04 lbs) and measure 11.1 cm (0′ 5″). They are a member of the Sciuridae family (genus: Xerus). An adult Cape ground squirrel grows up to a size of 24.7 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 Cape ground squirrel or South African ground squirrel (Xerus inauris) is found in most of the drier parts of southern Africa from South Africa, through to Botswana, and into Namibia, including Etosha National Park.The name Cape ground squirrel is somewhat misleading as it actually has a much wider area of habitation. This common name may have been arrived at to distinguish it from a tree squirrel (the eastern grey squirrel) found around Cape Town, which was imported from Europe by Cecil John Rhodes.
Other animals of the family Sciuridae
Cape ground squirrel is a member of the Sciuridae, as are these animals:
- Olympic marmot with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Ring-tailed ground squirrel with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Red-cheeked rope squirrel weighting only 250 grams
- Red bush squirrel with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Long-tailed ground squirrel with 7 babies per pregnancy
- Maritime striped squirrel with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Grey-bellied squirrel with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Pallas’s squirrel with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Yellow-cheeked chipmunk weighting only 91 grams
- Small sun squirrel weighting only 174 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Cape ground squirrel
Those animals also give birth to 2 babies at once:
- Honey badger
- Large tree mouse
- Black-striped squirrel
- Caracal
- Southern pig-footed bandicoot
- Eastern gray squirrel
- African wading rat
- Golden lion tamarin
- Fraser’s musk shrew
- Congo rope squirrel
Animals that get as old as a Cape ground squirrel
Other animals that usually reach the age of 13 years:
- Maxwell’s duiker with 12.25 years
- Llama with 14.17 years
- Indian pangolin with 13.5 years
- Harnessed bushbuck with 13 years
- Blue duiker with 12 years
- European polecat with 14 years
- Java mouse-deer with 12 years
- Bobak marmot with 15 years
- Cape genet with 15 years
- Pampas fox with 13.67 years
Animals with the same weight as a Cape ground squirrel
What other animals weight around 572 grams (1.26 lbs)?
- Peruvian tuco-tuco weighting 489 grams
- Michoacan pocket gopher weighting 474 grams
- Greater bandicoot rat weighting 583 grams
- Peters’s squirrel weighting 650 grams
- Broad-striped Malagasy mongoose weighting 550 grams
- Giant otter shrew weighting 685 grams
- Solomons flying fox weighting 661 grams
- Golden-headed lion tamarin weighting 573 grams
- Xerus erythropus weighting 602 grams
- Ring-tailed ground squirrel weighting 500 grams
Animals with the same size as a Cape ground squirrel
Also reaching around 24.7 cm (0′ 10″) in size do these animals:
- Grey-headed flying fox gets as big as 27.2 cm (0′ 11″)
- Red-handed tamarin gets as big as 26.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- Oncilla gets as big as 25 cm (0′ 10″)
- Giant Atlantic tree-rat gets as big as 28.2 cm (1′ 0″)
- Madagascan fruit bat gets as big as 20.2 cm (0′ 8″)
- Squirrel-toothed rat gets as big as 26.4 cm (0′ 11″)
- Samar squirrel gets as big as 21 cm (0′ 9″)
- Florida naked-tailed rat gets as big as 27 cm (0′ 11″)
- Black-bearded flying fox gets as big as 28.5 cm (1′ 0″)
- Red squirrel gets as big as 21.3 cm (0′ 9″)