How many baby Abert’s squirrels are in a litter?
A Abert’s squirrel (Sciurus aberti) usually gives birth to around 3 babies.With 1 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 3 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 40 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 12 grams (0.03 lbs) and measure 1.6 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Sciuridae family (genus: Sciurus). An adult Abert’s squirrel grows up to a size of 26.9 cm (0′ 11″).
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.
Abert’s squirrel or the tassel-eared squirrel (Sciurus aberti) is a tree squirrel in the genus Sciurus native to the southern Rocky Mountains from the United States to the northern Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico, with concentrations found in Arizona, the Grand Canyon, New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado. It is closely associated with, and largely confined to, cool dry ponderosa pine forests. It is named in honor of the American naturalist John James Abert; nine subspecies are recognised. It is recognizable by its tufted ears, gray color, pale underparts and rufous patch on the lower back. The squirrel feeds on the seeds and cones of the Mexican pinyon and the ponderosa pine when they are available, but will also take fungi, buds, bark, and carrion. Breeding normally occurs in summer, with a spherical nest being built high in the canopy.
Other animals of the family Sciuridae
Abert’s squirrel is a member of the Sciuridae, as are these animals:
- Sanborn’s squirrel weighting only 136 grams
- Bolivian squirrel weighting only 190 grams
- Indian giant squirrel weighting around 1.06 kilograms (2.34 lbs)
- Maritime striped squirrel with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Guayaquil squirrel weighting only 433 grams
- Carruther’s mountain squirrel weighting only 277 grams
- Hagen’s flying squirrel raching a size of 24.8 cm (0′ 10″)
- Epixerus with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Southern Palawan tree squirrel raching a size of 21 cm (0′ 9″)
- Hoary marmot with 4 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Abert’s squirrel
Those animals also give birth to 3 babies at once:
- Indian hairy-footed gerbil
- Dusky caenolestid
- San Diego pocket mouse
- Desert mouse
- Long-tailed marmot
- Grizzled giant squirrel
- Plains rat
- Eastern pygmy possum
- Arizona gray squirrel
- Dark-tailed tree rat
Animals with the same weight as a Abert’s squirrel
What other animals weight around 623 grams (1.37 lbs)?
- Kashmir flying squirrel weighting 510 grams
- Ashy-headed flying fox weighting 524 grams
- White-footed sportive lemur weighting 600 grams
- Atlantic bamboo rat weighting 600 grams
- Giant Atlantic tree-rat weighting 502 grams
- Epixerus weighting 559 grams
- Central African oyan weighting 570 grams
- Oaxacan pocket gopher weighting 499 grams
- Desert bandicoot weighting 499 grams
- Giant tree-rat weighting 584 grams
Animals with the same size as a Abert’s squirrel
Also reaching around 26.9 cm (0′ 11″) in size do these animals:
- Slender-tailed squirrel gets as big as 26.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- Orange-brown Atlantic tree-rat gets as big as 22.7 cm (0′ 9″)
- Red-tailed squirrel gets as big as 22.2 cm (0′ 9″)
- Amur hedgehog gets as big as 24.9 cm (0′ 10″)
- Black-bearded flying fox gets as big as 28.5 cm (1′ 0″)
- Giant white-tailed rat gets as big as 28.3 cm (1′ 0″)
- Eastern small-toothed rat gets as big as 24.2 cm (0′ 10″)
- Gray-backed sportive lemur gets as big as 25.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- Dinagat bushy-tailed cloud rat gets as big as 26.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- Pousargues’s mongoose gets as big as 29 cm (1′ 0″)