How many baby Alpine pikas are in a litter?
A Alpine pika (Ochotona alpina) usually gives birth to around 3 babies.With 2 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 6 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 28 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 8 grams (0.02 lbs) and measure 5.1 cm (0′ 3″). They are a member of the Ochotonidae family (genus: Ochotona). An adult Alpine pika grows up to a size of 17.5 cm (0′ 7″).
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 alpine pika (Ochotona alpina) is a species of small mammal in the pika family, Ochotonidae. The summer pelage of different subspecies varies drastically but, in general, it is dark or cinnamon brown, turning to grey with a yellowish tinge during the winter. The alpine pika is found in western Mongolia, eastern Kazakhstan, and Russia (Tuva, Irkutsk, Altai, and Krasnoyarsk), as well as in China (northern Xinjiang and Heilongjiang), in very cold, mountainous regions. It is a generalist herbivore, and mainly forages on mosses, tree branches, pine nuts, and plant stems. It can emit three series of different vocalizations: a long call, a short call, and an alarm call. It is rated as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species.
Other animals of the family Ochotonidae
Alpine pika is a member of the Ochotonidae, as are these animals:
- Sardinian pika raching a size of 22.5 cm (0′ 9″)
- Collared pika with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Ili pika raching a size of 20.3 cm (0′ 8″)
- Daurian pika with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Koslov’s pika with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Plateau pika with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Northern pika with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Afghan pika with 6 babies per pregnancy
- Gansu pika with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Steppe pika with 8 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Alpine pika
Those animals also give birth to 3 babies at once:
- Oryzomys couesi
- Reddish-gray musk shrew
- Eastern woodrat
- Acacia rat
- Heermann’s kangaroo rat
- Texas mouse
- East African highland shrew
- Greater cane rat
- Russian desman
- Père David’s mole
Animals that get as old as a Alpine pika
Other animals that usually reach the age of 3 years:
- Black myotis with 3.5 years
- Southwestern myotis with 3.17 years
- Dibbler with 3 years
- Small Japanese mole with 3.5 years
- White-footed dunnart with 2.5 years
- Long-nosed echymipera with 2.83 years
- Banner-tailed kangaroo rat with 3 years
- Chestnut tree mouse with 2.42 years
- Fat-tailed false antechinus with 3 years
- Acacia rat with 3.5 years
Animals with the same weight as a Alpine pika
What other animals weight around 150 grams (0.33 lbs)?
- Narrow-striped marsupial shrew weighting 124 grams
- Sado mole weighting 131 grams
- Long-footed treeshrew weighting 168 grams
- Mountain viscacha rat weighting 124 grams
- Maxomys baeodon weighting 159 grams
- Three-striped ground squirrel weighting 175 grams
- Spectral bat weighting 171 grams
- Sula rat weighting 131 grams
- Javanese flying squirrel weighting 156 grams
- Baird’s pocket gopher weighting 136 grams
Animals with the same size as a Alpine pika
Also reaching around 17.5 cm (0′ 7″) in size do these animals:
- Mountain water rat gets as big as 14.4 cm (0′ 6″)
- Bush vlei rat gets as big as 15.3 cm (0′ 7″)
- Dinagat gymnure gets as big as 20 cm (0′ 8″)
- Large-toothed hairy-tailed rat gets as big as 19.5 cm (0′ 8″)
- Mexican woodrat gets as big as 18.4 cm (0′ 8″)
- Ribboned rope squirrel gets as big as 16.7 cm (0′ 7″)
- Long-tailed Talaud mosaic-tailed rat gets as big as 15.2 cm (0′ 6″)
- Vinogradov’s jird gets as big as 15.5 cm (0′ 7″)
- Desert hedgehog gets as big as 18.1 cm (0′ 8″)
- Gray tree rat gets as big as 19.2 cm (0′ 8″)