How many baby Douglas squirrels are in a litter?
A Douglas squirrel (Tamiasciurus douglasii) 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 38 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 5 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 4.2 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Sciuridae family (genus: Tamiasciurus). An adult Douglas squirrel grows up to a size of 19.1 cm (0′ 8″).
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 Douglas squirrel (Tamiasciurus douglasii) is a pine squirrel found in the Pacific Northwest of North America, including the coastal states of the United States as well as the southwestern coast of British Columbia in Canada. It is sometimes known as the chickaree or pine squirrel, although these names are also used for the American red squirrel. Variant spellings of the common name are Douglas’ squirrel and Douglas’s squirrel. The Native Americans of Kings River called it the “Pillillooeet”, in imitation of its characteristic alarm call.
Other animals of the family Sciuridae
Douglas squirrel is a member of the Sciuridae, as are these animals:
- Belding’s ground squirrel with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Woolly flying squirrel raching a size of 45.9 cm (1′ 7″)
- Japanese squirrel weighting only 264 grams
- Indian giant flying squirrel weighting around 1.68 kilograms (3.7 lbs)
- Alpine marmot with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Philippine tree squirrel raching a size of 21 cm (0′ 9″)
- Carruther’s mountain squirrel weighting only 277 grams
- Brazilian squirrel weighting only 177 grams
- Perny’s long-nosed squirrel weighting only 199 grams
- Amazon dwarf squirrel weighting only 92 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Douglas squirrel
Those animals also give birth to 5 babies at once:
- Eversmann’s hamster
- Grey dwarf hamster
- Golden-mantled ground squirrel
- Dusky slender opossum
- Cutch rat
- White-tailed prairie dog
- Paucident planigale
- Dalton’s mouse
- Western jumping mouse
- Star-nosed mole
Animals with the same weight as a Douglas squirrel
What other animals weight around 225 grams (0.5 lbs)?
- White-bellied nesomys weighting 214 grams
- Yellow-bellied weasel weighting 264 grams
- Plantain squirrel weighting 210 grams
- Annandale’s rat weighting 197 grams
- Robust tuco-tuco weighting 249 grams
- Northeast African mole-rat weighting 227 grams
- Sierra Madre ground squirrel weighting 207 grams
- Ihering’s Atlantic spiny rat weighting 220 grams
- Panniet naked-backed fruit bat weighting 239 grams
- Southern pig-footed bandicoot weighting 220 grams
Animals with the same size as a Douglas squirrel
Also reaching around 19.1 cm (0′ 8″) in size do these animals:
- Blazed Luzon shrew-rat gets as big as 19.5 cm (0′ 8″)
- Panniet naked-backed fruit bat gets as big as 18.6 cm (0′ 8″)
- Asian red-cheeked squirrel gets as big as 20.3 cm (0′ 8″)
- Black rat gets as big as 19.4 cm (0′ 8″)
- Cerradomys subflavus gets as big as 16 cm (0′ 7″)
- Biak naked-backed fruit bat gets as big as 16.4 cm (0′ 7″)
- Ili pika gets as big as 20.3 cm (0′ 8″)
- Chestnut-bellied spiny rat gets as big as 16.7 cm (0′ 7″)
- Northern pika gets as big as 16 cm (0′ 7″)
- Pygmy ringtail possum gets as big as 19.8 cm (0′ 8″)