How many baby California voles are in a litter?
A California vole (Microtus californicus) usually gives birth to around 4 babies.With 5 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 20 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 21 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 3 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 1.8 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Microtus). An adult California vole grows up to a size of 13.9 cm (0′ 6″).
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 vole (Microtus californicus) is a type of vole which lives throughout much of California and part of southwestern Oregon. It is also known as the California meadow mouse. It averages 172 mm (6.8 in) in length although this length varies greatly between subspecies.
Other animals of the family Muridae
California vole is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Peters’s mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Red-bellied mosaic-tailed rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Ciscaucasian hamster with 9 babies per pregnancy
- Snow-footed Oldfield mouse weighting only 54 grams
- Ryukyu spiny rat weighting only 84 grams
- Southern grasshopper mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Voalavoanala with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Chestnut-bellied spiny rat weighting only 159 grams
- Brants’s whistling rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Lowland mosaic-tailed rat with 1 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with California vole
Those animals also give birth to 4 babies at once:
- Krebs’s fat mouse
- Camas pocket gopher
- Hairy-tailed mole
- Tarbagan marmot
- Rudd’s mouse
- Dsinezumi shrew
- Shrew gymnure
- Large Japanese field mouse
- Mexican prairie dog
- Silky mouse
Animals with the same weight as a California vole
What other animals weight around 57 grams (0.13 lbs)?
- Greater big-footed mouse weighting 55 grams
- Underwood’s bonneted bat weighting 58 grams
- Natal multimammate mouse weighting 62 grams
- Argentine hocicudo weighting 67 grams
- Robbins’s tateril weighting 47 grams
- Mearns’s pouched mouse weighting 64 grams
- Alexander’s bush squirrel weighting 50 grams
- Ruschi’s rat weighting 63 grams
- Stephens’s kangaroo rat weighting 68 grams
- Gulf Coast kangaroo rat weighting 49 grams
Animals with the same size as a California vole
Also reaching around 13.9 cm (0′ 6″) in size do these animals:
- Dorothy’s slender opossum gets as big as 15.2 cm (0′ 6″)
- Coxing’s white-bellied rat gets as big as 13 cm (0′ 6″)
- Banner-tailed kangaroo rat gets as big as 14.1 cm (0′ 6″)
- Guam flying fox gets as big as 14.5 cm (0′ 6″)
- Malaita tube-nosed fruit bat gets as big as 11.9 cm (0′ 5″)
- Biak glider gets as big as 14.5 cm (0′ 6″)
- Northern collared lemming gets as big as 11.7 cm (0′ 5″)
- Ernst Mayr’s water rat gets as big as 12.1 cm (0′ 5″)
- Chiapan deer mouse gets as big as 14 cm (0′ 6″)
- Seram long-tailed mosaic-tailed rat gets as big as 14.7 cm (0′ 6″)