How many baby Balkan snow voles are in a litter?
A Balkan snow vole (Dinaromys bogdanovi) usually gives birth to around 2 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 30 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 5 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 1.3 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Dinaromys). An adult Balkan snow vole grows up to a size of 40.2 cm (1′ 4″).
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 Balkan snow vole, Dinaromys bogdanovi, also known as Martino’s snow vole is the only member of the genus Dinaromys. Eight subspecies of this vole have been recognized from southern parts of Europe. The genus name means “Dinaric mouse”, referring to the Dinaric Alps. The Balkan snow vole is a living fossil, the only living genus in the tribe Pliomyini and might arguably better be placed in Pliomys, a genus established for its fossil relatives even before the Balkan snow vole was scientifically described.
Other animals of the family Muridae
Balkan snow vole is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Gould’s mouse weighting only 49 grams
- Gray tree rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Andean big-eared mouse weighting only 38 grams
- Pygmy rock mouse with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Afghan vole with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Winter white dwarf hamster with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Shaw Mayer’s brush mouse with 2 babies per pregnancy
- El Carrizo deer mouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Mindanao hairy-tailed rat weighting only 186 grams
- Texas mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Balkan snow vole
Those animals also give birth to 2 babies at once:
- Saharan striped polecat
- Cactus mouse
- Lusitanian pine vole
- Brown mouse lemur
- Yellow-spotted brush-furred rat
- Eurasian lynx
- Baluchistan pygmy jerboa
- Yunnan hare
- American marten
- Amami rabbit
Animals with the same weight as a Balkan snow vole
What other animals weight around 56 grams (0.12 lbs)?
- Ungava collared lemming weighting 57 grams
- Temminck’s striped mouse weighting 60 grams
- Handleyomys fuscatus weighting 49 grams
- Namaqua rock rat weighting 57 grams
- Transandinomys talamancae weighting 54 grams
- Cave nectar bat weighting 58 grams
- Star-nosed mole weighting 48 grams
- Rupp’s mouse weighting 48 grams
- Guajira mouse opossum weighting 46 grams
- Hopi chipmunk weighting 53 grams