How many baby African pygmy mouses are in a litter?
A African pygmy mouse (Mus minutoides) usually gives birth to around 4 babies.With 4 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 16 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 20 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 1 grams (0 lbs) and measure 2.5 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Mus). An adult African pygmy mouse grows up to a size of 12.9 cm (0′ 6″).
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 African pygmy mouse (Mus minutoides) is one of the smallest rodents. It is widespread within sub-Saharan Africa, and is kept as a pet in other parts of the world. Like the common house mouse, it is a member of the enormous superfamily Muroidea, which includes about 1000 different species.Grey to brick-red overall, it is pale on the underside and has small but prominent triangular ears. Adults are between 30 and 80 mm (1.2 and 3.1 in) long, with a 20 to 40 mm (0.79 to 1.57 in) tail, and weigh from 3 to 12 g (0.11 to 0.42 oz).African pygmy mice reach breeding age at about 6 to 8 weeks. Pregnancy lasts for around 20 days and the litter of about three young is born blind and hairless. Their eyes open after 2 weeks, and weaning is complete after 4 weeks. The lifespan is about 2 years, although individual specimens have been reported to live over 4 years in captivity.The African pygmy mouse has a number of unique traits. It stacks pebbles in front of its burrow. Overnight, the pebbles gather dew and in the morning, the pygmy mouse drinks the dew on the pebbles. After that, it retires to its den. Its method of sex determination has also been found to differ from most mammals in that rearrangements of the X chromosome have led to many XY individuals actually being female.They live in colonies or in pairs in grass close to water and are excellent climbers.
Other animals of the family Muridae
African pygmy mouse is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Soft grass mouse weighting only 30 grams
- Stolička’s mountain vole with 7 babies per pregnancy
- Mount Data shrew-rat raching a size of 20.1 cm (0′ 8″)
- Mediterranean pine vole with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Notiomys weighting only 21 grams
- Thomas’s water mouse weighting only 40 grams
- Müller’s giant Sunda rat becoming 2 years old
- Bogotá grass mouse weighting only 13 grams
- Allen’s wood mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Bush rat with 4 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with African pygmy mouse
Those animals also give birth to 4 babies at once:
- Dsinezumi shrew
- Himalayan shrew
- Rock squirrel
- California vole
- Hooded skunk
- Bush rat
- New Holland mouse
- Silver mountain vole
- Japanese dormouse
- Little pocket mouse
Animals that get as old as a African pygmy mouse
Other animals that usually reach the age of 3.08 years:
- Japanese mole with 3.5 years
- Lesser white-toothed shrew with 2.67 years
- Little long-tailed dunnart with 3.17 years
- Four-striped grass mouse with 2.83 years
- Eastern woodrat with 3 years
- Common opossum with 2.67 years
- Red-tailed phascogale with 3 years
- Pen-tailed treeshrew with 2.67 years
- Alpine pika with 3 years
- Sminthopsis laniger with 3.25 years
Animals with the same weight as a African pygmy mouse
What other animals weight around 6 grams (0.01 lbs)?
- Laxmann’s shrew weighting 6 grams
- Gray sac-winged bat weighting 6 grams
- White-winged serotine weighting 5 grams
- Raffray’s sheath-tailed bat weighting 5 grams
- Brown pipistrelle weighting 6 grams
- Merriam’s shrew weighting 5 grams
- Lesser dog-like bat weighting 5 grams
- Silver-tipped myotis weighting 5 grams
- East Asian tailless leaf-nosed bat weighting 7 grams
- White-bellied big-eared bat weighting 6 grams