How many baby Golden spiny mouses are in a litter?
A Golden spiny mouse (Acomys russatus) usually gives birth to around 2 babies.
Upon birth, they weight 5 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 4.3 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Acomys). An adult Golden spiny mouse grows up to a size of 11.1 cm (0′ 5″).
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 golden spiny mouse (Acomys russatus) gets its name from the reddish-orange spiny fur that covers its body from head to tail. This coarse, inflexible fur is thought to protect it from predation. Aside from the golden fur that covers its head and upper parts, its flanks are yellow and its underside is pale. It has gray legs with pale feet and black soles. It is also described as having a small, but distinct white spot under each eye. It is often found in the wild missing a part or all of its tail because it is able to shed this as a defense mechanism. However, it is not known how this is done, how often it can occur, or under what conditions. It lives an average of three years in the wild. It is omnivorous and feeds on seeds, desert plants, snails, and insects. Living in desert regions, it is a xeric animal that obtains water from the plants that it eats and produces very concentrated urine in order to conserve water. A. russatus is naturally nocturnal, but adapts to being diurnal when it shares a habitat with A. cahirinus.
Other animals of the family Muridae
Golden spiny mouse is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Inca Oldfield mouse weighting only 77 grams
- Bogotá grass mouse weighting only 13 grams
- Turkish hamster with 9 babies per pregnancy
- Carpentarian rock rat weighting only 123 grams
- Chestnut-bellied spiny rat weighting only 159 grams
- Anderson’s gerbil with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Long-tailed hopping mouse weighting only 100 grams
- Red rock rat with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Müller’s giant Sunda rat becoming 2 years old
- Silky Oldfield mouse weighting only 115 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Golden spiny mouse
Those animals also give birth to 2 babies at once:
- Javanese flying squirrel
- Cape gray mongoose
- North American river otter
- Sumichrast’s vesper rat
- Alston’s brown mouse
- North African elephant shrew
- Blanford’s rat
- Javan mongoose
- Black-tufted marmoset
- Mayor’s mouse
Animals with the same weight as a Golden spiny mouse
What other animals weight around 42 grams (0.09 lbs)?
- Cape elephant shrew weighting 49 grams
- Woolly horseshoe bat weighting 34 grams
- Linnaeus’s mouse opossum weighting 36 grams
- Field vole weighting 35 grams
- Lukolela swamp rat weighting 42 grams
- White-striped free-tailed bat weighting 36 grams
- Yellow-pine chipmunk weighting 50 grams
- Gould’s mouse weighting 49 grams
- Goldman’s water mouse weighting 38 grams
- Mountain mosaic-tailed rat weighting 47 grams
Animals with the same size as a Golden spiny mouse
Also reaching around 11.1 cm (0′ 5″) in size do these animals:
- Pyrenean desman gets as big as 12.5 cm (0′ 5″)
- Western chestnut mouse gets as big as 10.1 cm (0′ 4″)
- Yellow golden mole gets as big as 10 cm (0′ 4″)
- European mole gets as big as 12.9 cm (0′ 6″)
- North African gerbil gets as big as 9 cm (0′ 4″)
- Long-tailed vole gets as big as 11.9 cm (0′ 5″)
- Moss-forest rat gets as big as 12.1 cm (0′ 5″)
- Japanese mountain mole gets as big as 9 cm (0′ 4″)
- Chinese dormouse gets as big as 9.1 cm (0′ 4″)
- Gunning’s golden mole gets as big as 12.3 cm (0′ 5″)