How many baby Cape gerbils are in a litter?
A Cape gerbil (Gerbilliscus afra) usually gives birth to around 3 babies.With 6 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 18 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 23 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 4 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 3.6 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Gerbilliscus). An adult Cape gerbil grows up to a size of 15 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 Cape gerbil, Gerbilliscus afra, is a species of gerbil found only in South Africa. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry shrubland and temperate desert.
Other animals of the family Muridae
Cape gerbil is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Olive montane mouse weighting only 37 grams
- Oecomys speciosus weighting only 73 grams
- Carpentarian rock rat weighting only 123 grams
- Microryzomys minutus weighting only 13 grams
- Yellow-bellied brush-furred rat with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Little native mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Akodon albiventer weighting only 26 grams
- Greater long-tailed hamster with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Black-tailed mosaic-tailed rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Southern big-eared mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Cape gerbil
Those animals also give birth to 3 babies at once:
- Transbaikal zokor
- Nagtglas’s African dormouse
- Small Japanese mole
- Waterhouse’s swamp rat
- Abert’s squirrel
- Namaqua rock rat
- Narrow-striped marsupial shrew
- Palmer’s chipmunk
- Smooth-coated otter
- Long-clawed mole vole
Animals with the same weight as a Cape gerbil
What other animals weight around 92 grams (0.2 lbs)?
- Biting chinchilla mouse weighting 82 grams
- Venezuelan climbing mouse weighting 89 grams
- Montane Oldfield mouse weighting 77 grams
- Zambian mole-rat weighting 76 grams
- Voalavoanala weighting 97 grams
- Robert’s hocicudo weighting 83 grams
- Kaiser’s rock rat weighting 90 grams
- Long-nosed mosaic-tailed rat weighting 82 grams
- Pale leaf-eared mouse weighting 102 grams
- Plains viscacha rat weighting 86 grams