How many baby Desert kangaroo rats are in a litter?
A Desert kangaroo rat (Dipodomys deserti) usually gives birth to around 3 babies.With 2 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 6 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 30 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 4 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 27.5 cm (0′ 11″). They are a member of the Heteromyidae family (genus: Dipodomys). An adult Desert kangaroo rat grows up to a size of 13.8 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 desert kangaroo rat (Dipodomys deserti) is a rodent species in the family Heteromyidae that is found in desert areas of southwestern North America. It is one of the large kangaroo rats, with a total length greater than 12 inches (30 cm) and a mass greater than 3.2oz (91g).
Other animals of the family Heteromyidae
Desert kangaroo rat is a member of the Heteromyidae, as are these animals:
- Little desert pocket mouse with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Merriam’s pocket mouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Phillips’s kangaroo rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Mexican spiny pocket mouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- California kangaroo rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Nelson’s pocket mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Margarita Island kangaroo rat raching a size of 9.4 cm (0′ 4″)
- Great Basin pocket mouse weighting only 24 grams
- Arizona pocket mouse weighting only 11 grams
- Big-eared kangaroo rat weighting only 78 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Desert kangaroo rat
Those animals also give birth to 3 babies at once:
- Western red-backed vole
- Large-eared tenrec
- Chilean rock rat
- Alpine pika
- Texas mouse
- Hooper’s mouse
- Derby’s woolly opossum
- Wagner’s gerbil
- Oligoryzomys nigripes
- Tyler’s mouse opossum
Animals with the same weight as a Desert kangaroo rat
What other animals weight around 108 grams (0.24 lbs)?
- Fringe-tailed gerbil weighting 96 grams
- Splendid climbing mouse weighting 89 grams
- African grass rat weighting 95 grams
- Dent’s vlei rat weighting 120 grams
- Yellow-nosed cotton rat weighting 122 grams
- Cape gerbil weighting 92 grams
- Thomas’s giant deer mouse weighting 111 grams
- Blick’s grass rat weighting 128 grams
- Golden hamster weighting 98 grams
- Ochre bush squirrel weighting 104 grams
Animals with the same size as a Desert kangaroo rat
Also reaching around 13.8 cm (0′ 6″) in size do these animals:
- Shrew gymnure gets as big as 11.7 cm (0′ 5″)
- Western rock elephant shrew gets as big as 12.2 cm (0′ 5″)
- Prairie vole gets as big as 12.2 cm (0′ 5″)
- Eastern mole gets as big as 12.5 cm (0′ 5″)
- Highland brush mouse gets as big as 12.7 cm (0′ 5″)
- Narrow-striped marsupial shrew gets as big as 16.3 cm (0′ 7″)
- Lesser Angolan epauletted fruit bat gets as big as 16.2 cm (0′ 7″)
- Black-tailed mosaic-tailed rat gets as big as 13.7 cm (0′ 6″)
- Small Japanese mole gets as big as 13.9 cm (0′ 6″)
- Aegialomys galapagoensis gets as big as 11.2 cm (0′ 5″)