How many baby Cape mole-rats are in a litter?
A Cape mole-rat (Georychus capensis) usually gives birth to around 5 babies.With 2 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 10 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 43 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 8 grams (0.02 lbs) and measure 3.4 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Bathyergidae family (genus: Georychus). An adult Cape mole-rat grows up to a size of 17.2 cm (0′ 7″).
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 mole-rat (Georychus capensis) is a species of mole-rat endemic to South Africa. It is the only living species in the genus Georychus.
Other animals of the family Bathyergidae
Cape mole-rat is a member of the Bathyergidae, as are these animals:
- Zambian mole-rat weighting only 76 grams
- Naked mole-rat with 11 babies per pregnancy
- Mechow’s mole-rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Silvery mole-rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Cape dune mole-rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Mashona mole-rat with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Ansell’s mole-rat weighting only 85 grams
- Namaqua dune mole-rat with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Ochre mole-rat with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Damaraland mole-rat with 3 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Cape mole-rat
Those animals also give birth to 5 babies at once:
- Siberian large-toothed shrew
- Montane vole
- Meadow jumping mouse
- White-tailed prairie dog
- Southern red-backed vole
- Mearns’s pouched mouse
- American pygmy shrew
- Corsac fox
- Arctic hare
- Yellow ground squirrel
Animals that get as old as a Cape mole-rat
Other animals that usually reach the age of 3 years:
- Little long-tailed dunnart with 3.17 years
- Northern pygmy mouse with 3.25 years
- Little red kaluta with 3 years
- Chestnut tree mouse with 2.42 years
- Golden mouse with 2.5 years
- Long-tailed pocket mouse with 2.5 years
- North African elephant shrew with 3 years
- Japanese mountain mole with 3 years
- Talas tuco-tuco with 3 years
- Japanese shrew mole with 3.5 years
Animals with the same weight as a Cape mole-rat
What other animals weight around 189 grams (0.42 lbs)?
- Fat-tailed dwarf lemur weighting 197 grams
- Argentine tuco-tuco weighting 221 grams
- Senegal bushbaby weighting 216 grams
- Broad-headed spiny rat weighting 201 grams
- Shipton’s mountain cavy weighting 185 grams
- Large-eared pika weighting 205 grams
- Kintampo rope squirrel weighting 186 grams
- Dusky field rat weighting 157 grams
- Spectral bat weighting 171 grams
- Earless water rat weighting 168 grams