How many baby Fat sand rats are in a litter?
A Fat sand rat (Psammomys obesus) usually gives birth to around 3 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 24 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 6 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 3.3 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Psammomys). An adult Fat sand rat grows up to a size of 29.1 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 fat sand rat (Psammomys obesus) is a terrestrial mammal from the gerbil subfamily that is mostly found in North Africa and the Middle East, ranging from Mauritania to the Arabian Peninsula. This species usually lives in sandy deserts, but may also be found in rocky terrain or saline marsh areas. Fat sand rats are very selective in their diet, only eating stems and leaves of plants from the family Amaranthaceae, more commonly known as the amaranth family. The fat sand rat acquired its name due to the fact that when it is fed a typical rodent diet, it quickly becomes obese and develops diabetes. P. obesus has an average lifespan of 14 months in the wild and 3-4 years in captivity.
Other animals of the family Muridae
Fat sand rat is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Northern collared lemming with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Barbary striped grass mouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Papua grassland mosaic-tailed rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Euryoryzomys macconnelli weighting only 62 grams
- Luzon Cordillera forest mouse weighting only 34 grams
- Chihuahuan mouse weighting only 40 grams
- Alpine pine vole with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Melanomys robustulus weighting only 53 grams
- Fawn hopping mouse with 2 babies per pregnancy
- White-ankled mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Fat sand rat
Those animals also give birth to 3 babies at once:
- Western red-backed vole
- Lesser mole-rat
- Eastern red bat
- Blackish white-toothed shrew
- European pine marten
- Tibetan sand fox
- Tullberg’s soft-furred mouse
- Gray fox
- Stein’s rat
- Kashmir flying squirrel
Animals with the same weight as a Fat sand rat
What other animals weight around 102 grams (0.22 lbs)?
- Dobson’s epauletted fruit bat weighting 121 grams
- Tiny tuco-tuco weighting 92 grams
- Ruwenzori otter shrew weighting 112 grams
- Red-cheeked flying squirrel weighting 118 grams
- Horsfield’s tarsier weighting 114 grams
- Northern pika weighting 120 grams
- Buller’s chipmunk weighting 100 grams
- Tsing-ling pika weighting 105 grams
- Robert’s hocicudo weighting 83 grams
- Fringe-tailed gerbil weighting 95 grams