How many baby Gobi jerboas are in a litter?
A Gobi jerboa (Allactaga bullata) usually gives birth to around 2 babies.
Upon birth, they weight 13 kg (28.66 lbs) and measure 4 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Dipodidae family (genus: Allactaga). An adult Gobi jerboa grows up to a size of 2.83 meter (9′ 4″).
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 Gobi jerboa (Allactaga bullata) is a species of rodent in the family Dipodidae. It is found in China and Mongolia. Its natural habitats are temperate grassland and temperate desert.The Gobi jerboa was discovered in 1925 by Glover Morrill Allen. It is found in the Gobi Desert located in northern and northwestern China, as well as in southern Mongolia, and is considered to be the most “desert loving” out of all Gobi rodents (Smith and Xie 2008). Allen first examined an adult male Gobi jerboa from Tsagan Nor, Outer Mongolia, which was collected on July 5, 1922 by the Central Asiatic Expeditions and housed at the American Museum of Natural History (Allen 1925). Allen further compared the subspecies Allactaga sibirica annulata and Allactaga sibirica sibirica, to the Gobi jerboa because they are all sympatric. Allen examined forty specimens collected from different regions of Mongolia, and found that while the Gobi jerboa was similar in color and appearance to A. sibirica annulata, by exhibiting the same grayer and buffier phases, the Gobi jerboa has shorter and broader ears, smaller hind feet, and a much larger globular audital bullae (nearly three times the size), which differentiates it from A. sibirica annulata. The Gobi jerboa was differentiated from A. sibirica sibirica because of its enlarged and globular auditory bullae, and its nearly vertical upper incisors (Allen 1925). Today, there have been 163 recorded occurrences of the Gobi jerboa, however there is currently no known data that examines its population status (The Global Biodiversity Information Facility 2013 and Batsaikhan et al. 2008).
Other animals of the family Dipodidae
Gobi jerboa is a member of the Dipodidae, as are these animals:
- Comb-toed jerboa with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Blanford’s jerboa with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Baluchistan pygmy jerboa with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Lesser fat-tailed jerboa with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Four-toed jerboa weighting only 52 grams
- Thick-tailed pygmy jerboa with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Greater Egyptian jerboa with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Mongolian five-toed jerboa with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Small five-toed jerboa with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Pacific jumping mouse with 5 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Gobi jerboa
Those animals also give birth to 2 babies at once: