How many baby Giant white-tailed rats are in a litter?
A Giant white-tailed rat (Uromys caudimaculatus) usually gives birth to around 2 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 38 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 20 grams (0.04 lbs) and measure 12.9 cm (0′ 6″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Uromys). An adult Giant white-tailed rat grows up to a size of 28.3 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 giant white-tailed rat (Uromys caudimaculatus) is an Australian rodent native to tropical rainforest of north Queensland, with subspecies occurring in New Guinea and the Aru Islands. It is one of the largest rodents in Australia, reaching up to 1 kg in weight, is grey-brown above, cream to white below, and has a long, naked tail of which the distal section is white (Moore 1995).Breeding commences in September or October, peaking in December and January at the height of the wet season. After a gestation of 36 days, a litter of two to three (rarely four) young are born, and remain with the mother for approximately three months (Moore 1995).
Other animals of the family Muridae
Giant white-tailed rat is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Handleyomys alfaroi with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Mottled-tailed shrew mouse weighting only 18 grams
- Greater hamster-rat with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Nyika climbing mouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Griselda’s striped grass mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Charming climbing mouse weighting only 89 grams
- Black-tailed gerbil with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Mount Apo forest mouse weighting only 34 grams
- Mexican woodrat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Mountain spiny rat weighting only 159 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Giant white-tailed rat
Those animals also give birth to 2 babies at once:
- Big deer mouse
- American black bear
- Cape fox
- Big-eared swamp rat
- Western barbastelle
- Savi’s pipistrelle
- Peters’s climbing rat
- Honey badger
- Black-tailed mouse
- Banded mongoose
Animals with the same weight as a Giant white-tailed rat
What other animals weight around 644 grams (1.42 lbs)?
- Black flying fox weighting 609 grams
- Meerkat weighting 730 grams
- Pemba flying fox weighting 541 grams
- Namaqua slender mongoose weighting 750 grams
- Central African oyan weighting 570 grams
- Banded linsang weighting 684 grams
- California ground squirrel weighting 598 grams
- Broad-striped Malagasy mongoose weighting 550 grams
- New Guinea waterside rat weighting 526 grams
- Greater bandicoot rat weighting 583 grams
Animals with the same size as a Giant white-tailed rat
Also reaching around 28.3 cm (1′ 0″) in size do these animals:
- Slender-tailed squirrel gets as big as 26.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- Numbat gets as big as 23 cm (0′ 10″)
- Rakali gets as big as 27.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- Giant otter shrew gets as big as 32 cm (1′ 1″)
- Black-footed tree-rat gets as big as 30.1 cm (1′ 0″)
- Pygmy rabbit gets as big as 26.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- White-faced spiny tree-rat gets as big as 29.7 cm (1′ 0″)
- Bougainville monkey-faced bat gets as big as 26.2 cm (0′ 11″)
- Painted ringtail possum gets as big as 26.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- Common kusimanse gets as big as 33.9 cm (1′ 2″)