How many baby Eurasian least shrews are in a litter?
A Eurasian least shrew (Sorex minutissimus) usually gives birth to around 8 babies.
Upon birth, they weight 5 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 1.6 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Soricidae family (genus: Sorex). An adult Eurasian least shrew grows up to a size of 5.2 cm (0′ 3″).
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 Eurasian least shrew (Sorex minutissimus), also called the lesser pygmy shrew, is the second-smallest mammal by mass after the Etruscan shrew.
Other animals of the family Soricidae
Eurasian least shrew is a member of the Soricidae, as are these animals:
- Crocidura grandiceps weighting only 23 grams
- Mindanao shrew weighting only 10 grams
- Zarudny’s rock shrew with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Goldman’s broad-clawed shrew weighting only 6 grams
- Peters’s musk shrew with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Kongana shrew weighting only 5 grams
- Flat-skulled shrew with 7 babies per pregnancy
- Mediterranean water shrew with 7 babies per pregnancy
- Large-eared gray shrew weighting only 5 grams
- Long-tailed shrew with 4 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Eurasian least shrew
Those animals also give birth to 8 babies at once:
- Yellow-footed antechinus
- White-bellied woolly mouse opossum
- Townsend’s ground squirrel
- Tundra shrew
- Southern long-nosed armadillo
- Slender-tailed dunnart
- San Joaquin antelope squirrel
- Golden hamster
- White-tailed antelope squirrel
- Cheesman’s gerbil
Animals with the same weight as a Eurasian least shrew
What other animals weight around 2 grams (0 lbs)?
- Black myotis weighting 2 grams
- Desert pipistrelle weighting 2 grams
- Tiny pipistrelle weighting 2 grams
- Borneo roundleaf bat weighting 2 grams
- Pipistrellus mimus weighting 2 grams
- Himalayan whiskered bat weighting 2 grams
- Dark sheath-tailed bat weighting 2 grams
- Madagascan pygmy shrew weighting 2 grams
- Mauritanian shrew weighting 2 grams
- Flat-headed shrew weighting 2 grams
Animals with the same size as a Eurasian least shrew
Also reaching around 5.2 cm (0′ 3″) in size do these animals:
- Trident bat gets as big as 5.6 cm (0′ 3″)
- Merriam’s pocket mouse gets as big as 5.8 cm (0′ 3″)
- Panamint kangaroo rat gets as big as 6 cm (0′ 3″)
- Temminck’s mouse gets as big as 6.1 cm (0′ 3″)
- Townsend’s big-eared bat gets as big as 5.7 cm (0′ 3″)
- Ash-colored Oldfield mouse gets as big as 5.7 cm (0′ 3″)
- Moupin pika gets as big as 5.2 cm (0′ 3″)
- Lesser mouse-tailed bat gets as big as 5.9 cm (0′ 3″)
- Eurasian pygmy shrew gets as big as 5.7 cm (0′ 3″)
- Least shrew tenrec gets as big as 5.2 cm (0′ 3″)