How many baby Arctic shrews are in a litter?
A Arctic shrew (Sorex arcticus) usually gives birth to around 6 babies.With 1 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 6 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 17 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 90 grams (0.2 lbs) and measure 2.5 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Soricidae family (genus: Sorex). An adult Arctic shrew grows up to a size of 7.5 cm (0′ 3″).
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 Arctic shrew (Sorex arcticus), also known as the blackback shrew or saddlebacked shrew, is a medium-sized shrew found in Canada and the northern United States. Separate species status has been proposed for the maritime shrew (Sorex maritimensis) which is found in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and had been considered to be a subspecies of the Arctic shrew. The tundra shrew (Sorex tundrensis) was formerly considered to be a subspecies of the Arctic shrew.
Other animals of the family Soricidae
Arctic shrew is a member of the Soricidae, as are these animals:
- Crocidura grandiceps weighting only 23 grams
- Inyo shrew weighting only 3 grams
- Mexican shrew weighting only 11 grams
- Eisentraut’s shrew with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Upemba shrew weighting only 14 grams
- Babault’s mouse shrew with 2 babies per pregnancy
- East African highland shrew with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Ruwenzori shrew weighting only 18 grams
- Asiatic short-tailed shrew weighting only 12 grams
- Kongana shrew weighting only 5 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Arctic shrew
Those animals also give birth to 6 babies at once:
- Mindoro black rat
- Bornean bearded pig
- Steppe mouse
- European ground squirrel
- Bobak marmot
- Eurasian pygmy shrew
- Round-tailed ground squirrel
- Philippine warty pig
- Siberian brown lemming
- Woolly mouse opossum
Animals that get as old as a Arctic shrew
Other animals that usually reach the age of 1.5 years:
- Western harvest mouse with 1.5 years
- Southern red-backed vole with 1.67 years
- Brush mouse with 1.5 years
- Aegialomys galapagoensis with 1.67 years
- Townsend’s mole with 1.5 years
- American water shrew with 1.5 years
- Crawford’s gray shrew with 1.25 years
- Ornate shrew with 1.42 years
- Southern marsupial mole with 1.5 years
- Tundra vole with 1.75 years
Animals with the same weight as a Arctic shrew
What other animals weight around 8 grams (0.02 lbs)?
- Pygmy round-eared bat weighting 9 grams
- Antillean ghost-faced bat weighting 8 grams
- Northern birch mouse weighting 8 grams
- Blackish small-eared shrew weighting 8 grams
- Greater white-toothed shrew weighting 9 grams
- Wagner’s mustached bat weighting 7 grams
- Brazilian brown bat weighting 9 grams
- Common shrew weighting 9 grams
- Chestnut-bellied shrew weighting 7 grams
- Greater sac-winged bat weighting 8 grams
Animals with the same size as a Arctic shrew
Also reaching around 7.5 cm (0′ 3″) in size do these animals:
- Madagascan flying fox gets as big as 8.4 cm (0′ 4″)
- Siberian large-toothed shrew gets as big as 7.1 cm (0′ 3″)
- Common vampire bat gets as big as 7.8 cm (0′ 4″)
- Hoary bat gets as big as 7.5 cm (0′ 3″)
- Egyptian tomb bat gets as big as 7.2 cm (0′ 3″)
- Ranee mouse gets as big as 7.5 cm (0′ 3″)
- North African gerbil gets as big as 9 cm (0′ 4″)
- Meadow jumping mouse gets as big as 8.6 cm (0′ 4″)
- Cowan’s shrew tenrec gets as big as 6.3 cm (0′ 3″)
- Van Zyl’s golden mole gets as big as 8.4 cm (0′ 4″)