How many baby Afghan pikas are in a litter?
A Afghan pika (Ochotona rufescens) usually gives birth to around 6 babies.With 4 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 24 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 25 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 11 grams (0.02 lbs) and measure 5.7 cm (0′ 3″). They are a member of the Ochotonidae family (genus: Ochotona). An adult Afghan pika grows up to a size of 19.7 cm (0′ 8″).
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 Afghan pika (Ochotona rufescens) is a species of small mammal in the pika family, Ochotonidae. It is found in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Turkmenistan and the IUCN lists it as being of “least concern”.
Other animals of the family Ochotonidae
Afghan pika is a member of the Ochotonidae, as are these animals:
- Ladak pika raching a size of 17.7 cm (0′ 7″)
- Himalayan pika with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Chinese red pika raching a size of 24.5 cm (0′ 10″)
- Ili pika raching a size of 20.3 cm (0′ 8″)
- Moupin pika with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Gaoligong pika raching a size of 16.7 cm (0′ 7″)
- Sardinian pika raching a size of 22.5 cm (0′ 9″)
- American pika with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Collared pika with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Plateau pika with 4 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Afghan pika
Those animals also give birth to 6 babies at once:
- Eurasian water shrew
- New Guinean quoll
- California ground squirrel
- Gray leaf-eared mouse
- Woolly mouse opossum
- Maximowicz’s vole
- Crest-tailed mulgara
- Dwarf shrew
- Günther’s vole
- Flat-haired mouse
Animals with the same weight as a Afghan pika
What other animals weight around 250 grams (0.55 lbs)?
- Lowland ringtail possum weighting 300 grams
- Northern needle-clawed bushbaby weighting 278 grams
- Western naked-backed fruit bat weighting 226 grams
- Pallid Atlantic tree-rat weighting 215 grams
- White-toothed tuco-tuco weighting 244 grams
- Long-haired rat weighting 221 grams
- Fijian monkey-faced bat weighting 256 grams
- Biak naked-backed fruit bat weighting 200 grams
- Bushy-tailed woodrat weighting 286 grams
- Black-spined Atlantic tree-rat weighting 224 grams
Animals with the same size as a Afghan pika
Also reaching around 19.7 cm (0′ 8″) in size do these animals:
- Bare-tailed woolly mouse opossum gets as big as 20.4 cm (0′ 9″)
- Kowari gets as big as 15.8 cm (0′ 7″)
- Bryant’s woodrat gets as big as 20.9 cm (0′ 9″)
- Large treeshrew gets as big as 18.5 cm (0′ 8″)
- Cape York rat gets as big as 18.9 cm (0′ 8″)
- Tropical ground squirrel gets as big as 17.8 cm (0′ 8″)
- Guadalcanal monkey-faced bat gets as big as 20.7 cm (0′ 9″)
- Australian swamp rat gets as big as 16 cm (0′ 7″)
- Bangs’s mountain squirrel gets as big as 16.2 cm (0′ 7″)
- Gilliard’s flying fox gets as big as 15.9 cm (0′ 7″)