How many baby Common degus are in a litter?
A Common degu (Octodon degus) 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 90 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 14 grams (0.03 lbs) and measure 5.7 cm (0′ 3″). They are a member of the Octodontidae family (genus: Octodon). An adult Common degu grows up to a size of 28 cm (1′ 0″).
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 common degu (Octodon degus; ), or, historically, the degu, is a small hystricomorpha rodent endemic to the Chilean matorral ecoregion of central Chile. The name degu on its own indicates either the entire genus Octodon or, more commonly, just the common degu. Common degus belong to the parvorder Caviomorpha of the infraorder Hystricognathi, along with the chinchilla and guinea pig. The word degu comes from the indigenous language of Chile, Mapudungun, and the word dewü, meaning ‘mouse’ or ‘rat’.The animal may be kept as a pocket pet, except there are prohibitions on their ownership in some territories. As a pet, the animal is larger than a golden hamster but smaller than a fancy rat.
Other animals of the family Octodontidae
Common degu is a member of the Octodontidae, as are these animals:
- Sage’s rock rat weighting only 96 grams
- Moon-toothed degu weighting only 200 grams
- Plains viscacha rat weighting only 86 grams
- Chilean rock rat with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Mountain degu with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Coruro with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Mountain viscacha rat weighting only 124 grams
- Bridges’s degu weighting only 162 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Common degu
Those animals also give birth to 5 babies at once:
- Red wolf
- Edible dormouse
- Norway lemming
- Kowari
- Lesser hedgehog tenrec
- Grey dwarf hamster
- Long-eared chipmunk
- Mexican ground squirrel
- Midday jird
- Montane shrew
Animals that get as old as a Common degu
Other animals that usually reach the age of 7.08 years:
- Talazac’s shrew tenrec with 5.83 years
- Doria’s tree-kangaroo with 8 years
- House mouse with 6 years
- Nathusius’s pipistrelle with 8 years
- Lesser short-nosed fruit bat with 8 years
- Kowari with 7 years
- Mexican mouse opossum with 7 years
- Rakali with 6.17 years
- Black-tailed jackrabbit with 6.75 years
- Musky rat-kangaroo with 6 years
Animals with the same weight as a Common degu
What other animals weight around 203 grams (0.45 lbs)?
- Plains pocket gopher weighting 179 grams
- Chacoan tuco-tuco weighting 166 grams
- Long-footed treeshrew weighting 168 grams
- Salta tuco-tuco weighting 230 grams
- Dusky-footed woodrat weighting 219 grams
- Bonetto’s tuco-tuco weighting 202 grams
- Orange-bellied Himalayan squirrel weighting 227 grams
- Pearson’s tuco-tuco weighting 212 grams
- Brandt’s hedgehog weighting 213 grams
- Southern pig-footed bandicoot weighting 220 grams
Animals with the same size as a Common degu
Also reaching around 28 cm (1′ 0″) in size do these animals:
- Red-handed tamarin gets as big as 26.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- Painted ringtail possum gets as big as 26.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- Brown-eared woolly opossum gets as big as 27.3 cm (0′ 11″)
- San José brush rabbit gets as big as 29.4 cm (1′ 0″)
- Giant Atlantic tree-rat gets as big as 28.2 cm (1′ 0″)
- Black-footed tree-rat gets as big as 30.1 cm (1′ 0″)
- Desert cottontail gets as big as 32.5 cm (1′ 1″)
- Conover’s tuco-tuco gets as big as 25.8 cm (0′ 11″)
- Bougainville monkey-faced bat gets as big as 26.2 cm (0′ 11″)
- Long-clawed ground squirrel gets as big as 24.4 cm (0′ 10″)