How many baby California kangaroo rats are in a litter?
A California kangaroo rat (Dipodomys californicus) usually gives birth to around 2 babies.With 2 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 4 babies.
Upon birth, they weight 59 grams (0.13 lbs) and measure 27.5 cm (0′ 11″). They are a member of the Heteromyidae family (genus: Dipodomys). An adult California kangaroo rat grows up to a size of 11.5 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 California kangaroo rat (Dipodomys californicus) is a species of rodent in the family Heteromyidae. However, populations are declining, having not fully recovered after the drought in California from 2013-2015 destroyed their habitat (the grasslands) and changed it into desert.
Other animals of the family Heteromyidae
California kangaroo rat is a member of the Heteromyidae, as are these animals:
- Plains pocket mouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Great Basin pocket mouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- San Diego pocket mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Pale kangaroo mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Southern spiny pocket mouse with 2 babies per pregnancy
- San Quintin kangaroo rat weighting only 84 grams
- Desert kangaroo rat with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Fresno kangaroo rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Long-tailed pocket mouse with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Lined pocket mouse weighting only 23 grams
Animals that share a litter size with California kangaroo rat
Those animals also give birth to 2 babies at once:
- Mountain treeshrew
- Butiaba naked-tailed shrew
- Spotted hyena
- Woodland vole
- Andean mouse
- Wolverine
- Dark-footed mouse shrew
- Selous’s mongoose
- Tasmanian devil
- Peters’s striped mouse
Animals with the same weight as a California kangaroo rat
What other animals weight around 85 grams (0.19 lbs)?
- Bushveld gerbil weighting 73 grams
- Atlantic Forest climbing mouse weighting 100 grams
- Oldfield white-bellied rat weighting 81 grams
- Big-eared woolly bat weighting 78 grams
- Philippine dawn bat weighting 78 grams
- Pallid Atlantic Forest rat weighting 90 grams
- Central rock rat weighting 100 grams
- Master leaf-eared mouse weighting 68 grams
- Guinean gerbil weighting 102 grams
- Long-clawed mole vole weighting 75 grams
Animals with the same size as a California kangaroo rat
Also reaching around 11.5 cm (0′ 5″) in size do these animals:
- Moss-forest rat gets as big as 11.5 cm (0′ 5″)
- Florida mouse gets as big as 10.4 cm (0′ 5″)
- Spectral tarsier gets as big as 12 cm (0′ 5″)
- Creeping vole gets as big as 9.9 cm (0′ 4″)
- White-toothed brush mouse gets as big as 11.5 cm (0′ 5″)
- Phillips’s kangaroo rat gets as big as 9.6 cm (0′ 4″)
- Juliana’s golden mole gets as big as 10 cm (0′ 4″)
- Himalayan striped squirrel gets as big as 10.4 cm (0′ 5″)
- Himalayan mole gets as big as 12.2 cm (0′ 5″)
- Soft-furred Oldfield mouse gets as big as 11.2 cm (0′ 5″)