How many baby Aardwolfs are in a litter?
A Aardwolf (Proteles cristatus) usually gives birth to around 2 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 90 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 275 grams (0.61 lbs) and measure 3.3 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Hyaenidae family (genus: Proteles). An adult Aardwolf grows up to a size of 70.1 cm (2′ 4″).
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 aardwolf (Proteles cristata) is an insectivorous mammal, native to East and Southern Africa. Its name means “earth-wolf” in Afrikaans and Dutch. It is also called “maanhaar-jackal” (Afrikaans for “mane-jackal”), “Nxi” by the Nama people, “ant hyena”, “termite-eating hyena” and “civet hyena”, based on its habit of secreting substances from its anal gland, a characteristic shared with the African civet. The aardwolf is in the same family as the hyena. Unlike many of its relatives in the order Carnivora, the aardwolf does not hunt large animals. It eats insects and their larvae, mainly termites; one aardwolf can lap up as many as 250,000 termites during a single night using its long, sticky tongue.The aardwolf lives in the shrublands of eastern and southern Africa – open lands covered with stunted trees and shrubs. It is nocturnal, resting in burrows during the day and emerging at night to seek food.
Other animals of the family Hyaenidae
Aardwolf is a member of the Hyaenidae, as are these animals:
- Spotted hyena with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Striped hyena with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Brown hyena with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Brown hyena with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Aardwolf with 2 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Aardwolf
Those animals also give birth to 2 babies at once:
- Eurasian beaver
- African wading rat
- Striped hyena
- Gould’s wattled bat
- European pine vole
- Peters’s striped mouse
- Pouched gerbil
- Eurasian otter
- Large tree mouse
- Thick-tailed pygmy jerboa
Animals that get as old as a Aardwolf
Other animals that usually reach the age of 25 years:
- Swift fox with 20 years
- Barbary sheep with 21 years
- Wolf with 29.5 years
- Pagai Island macaque with 30 years
- Nilgai with 21.67 years
- Hector’s dolphin with 20 years
- Western barbastelle with 21 years
- Townsend’s big-eared bat with 21.17 years
- Ocelot with 20.25 years
- Goat with 20.75 years
Animals with the same weight as a Aardwolf
What other animals weight around 8.29 kg (18.28 lbs)?
- Hoolock gibbon usually reaching 6.7 kgs (14.77 lbs)
- Mountain paca usually reaching 9 kgs (19.84 lbs)
- Preuss’s red colobus usually reaching 8.87 kgs (19.55 lbs)
- Pygmy hog usually reaching 7.92 kgs (17.46 lbs)
- Thomas’s langur usually reaching 6.69 kgs (14.75 lbs)
- Collared mangabey usually reaching 7.29 kgs (16.07 lbs)
- American badger usually reaching 7.84 kgs (17.28 lbs)
- Black-backed jackal usually reaching 8.29 kgs (18.28 lbs)
- Golden jackal usually reaching 9.67 kgs (21.32 lbs)
- Southern river otter usually reaching 7.5 kgs (16.53 lbs)
Animals with the same size as a Aardwolf
Also reaching around 70.1 cm (2′ 4″) in size do these animals:
- Pampas fox gets as big as 62.2 cm (2′ 1″)
- Patas monkey gets as big as 66.5 cm (2′ 3″)
- Aders’s duiker gets as big as 69 cm (2′ 4″)
- Pennant’s colobus gets as big as 56.9 cm (1′ 11″)
- Pacarana gets as big as 75 cm (2′ 6″)
- Large Indian civet gets as big as 81.9 cm (2′ 9″)
- Wolverine gets as big as 77.3 cm (2′ 7″)
- Indri gets as big as 73.4 cm (2′ 5″)
- Moor macaque gets as big as 66 cm (2′ 2″)
- Hamadryas baboon gets as big as 67.5 cm (2′ 3″)