How many baby Asian house shrews are in a litter?
A Asian house shrew (Suncus murinus) usually gives birth to around 3 babies.With 9 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 27 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 30 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 2 grams (0 lbs) and measure 1.4 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Soricidae family (genus: Suncus). An adult Asian house shrew grows up to a size of 12.6 cm (0′ 5″).
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 Asian house shrew (Suncus murinus), house shrew, grey musk shrew, Asian musk shrew or Indian musk shrew is a widespread, adaptable species of shrew found mainly in South Asia but introduced widely throughout Asia and eastern Africa. It is a large shrew with a strong musk smell, and is related to the Etruscan shrew.This species is locally called chuchunder in India and is mentioned in Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book, as a nocturnal inhabitant of houses in India, by the name of chuchundra. However, Kipling’s mistaken use of the name ‘musk rat’ has led to confusion with the unrelated North American muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus), and the latter species, not found in India, was (erroneously) illustrated in the Jungle Book.This house shrew is categorized as a species of Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. It is also considered an invasive species and implicated in the demise of several island lizard species.
Other animals of the family Soricidae
Asian house shrew is a member of the Soricidae, as are these animals:
- Crawford’s gray shrew with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Large-eared gray shrew weighting only 5 grams
- Prairie shrew with 7 babies per pregnancy
- North American least shrew with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Radde’s shrew with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Grant’s forest shrew with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Mount Kenya mole shrew with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Marsh shrew weighting only 15 grams
- Yankari shrew weighting only 5 grams
- Chinese mole shrew with 2 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Asian house shrew
Those animals also give birth to 3 babies at once:
- Bolivian big-eared mouse
- Lesser gray-brown musk shrew
- Nyika rock rat
- Orange-bellied Himalayan squirrel
- Monito del monte
- Western mouse
- Temminck’s mouse
- Small Indian civet
- Flat-headed shrew
- Gambian pouched rat
Animals that get as old as a Asian house shrew
Other animals that usually reach the age of 2.5 years:
- Chestnut tree mouse with 2.42 years
- Four-striped grass mouse with 2.83 years
- Dusky antechinus with 2 years
- Northern quoll with 2.83 years
- South African pouched mouse with 2.75 years
- Marsh rice rat with 2.33 years
- Narrow-nosed planigale with 3 years
- Broad-footed mole with 3 years
- Sandstone false antechinus with 3 years
- Common shrew with 2 years
Animals with the same weight as a Asian house shrew
What other animals weight around 43 grams (0.09 lbs)?
- Ethiopian thicket rat weighting 36 grams
- Round-eared tube-nosed fruit bat weighting 48 grams
- Greater short-nosed fruit bat weighting 44 grams
- Woolley’s false antechinus weighting 43 grams
- Perote mouse weighting 40 grams
- Plateau mouse weighting 40 grams
- Singing vole weighting 41 grams
- Handleyomys chapmani weighting 49 grams
- Umboi tube-nosed fruit bat weighting 41 grams
- Delectable soft-furred mouse weighting 35 grams
Animals with the same size as a Asian house shrew
Also reaching around 12.6 cm (0′ 5″) in size do these animals:
- Stephens’s kangaroo rat gets as big as 11.6 cm (0′ 5″)
- Northern hopping mouse gets as big as 10.3 cm (0′ 5″)
- Banks flying fox gets as big as 14.7 cm (0′ 6″)
- Lodgepole chipmunk gets as big as 12.5 cm (0′ 5″)
- Least forest mouse gets as big as 10.9 cm (0′ 5″)
- White-bellied slender opossum gets as big as 11.2 cm (0′ 5″)
- Western mouse gets as big as 10.2 cm (0′ 5″)
- Gray slender opossum gets as big as 13 cm (0′ 6″)
- Pygmy mouse lemur gets as big as 14.1 cm (0′ 6″)
- Large mole gets as big as 14.9 cm (0′ 6″)