How many baby Gunnison’s prairie dogs are in a litter?
A Gunnison’s prairie dog (Cynomys gunnisoni) usually gives birth to around 4 babies.With 1 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 4 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 29 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 35 grams (0.08 lbs) and measure 25.4 cm (0′ 10″). They are a member of the Sciuridae family (genus: Cynomys). An adult Gunnison’s prairie dog grows up to a size of 27.9 cm (0′ 11″).
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.
Gunnison’s prairie dog (Cynomys gunnisoni) is one of five species of the prairie dog. This species belongs to the squirrel family of rodents, and are predominantly related to the North American and Eurasian ground squirrels. Gunnison’s prairie dogs are primarily distributed in the Four Corners region of the United States.
Other animals of the family Sciuridae
Gunnison’s prairie dog is a member of the Sciuridae, as are these animals:
- Ribboned rope squirrel with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Vancouver Island marmot with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Bangs’s mountain squirrel raching a size of 16.2 cm (0′ 7″)
- Hagen’s flying squirrel raching a size of 24.8 cm (0′ 10″)
- Daurian ground squirrel with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Southern Palawan tree squirrel raching a size of 21 cm (0′ 9″)
- Low’s squirrel with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Lodgepole chipmunk with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Red giant flying squirrel with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Red-cheeked ground squirrel with 7 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Gunnison’s prairie dog
Those animals also give birth to 4 babies at once:
- Andean vesper mouse
- Gracile tateril
- Zagros Mountains mouse-like hamster
- Japanese grass vole
- Dune hairy-footed gerbil
- Woodland jumping mouse
- Chestnut white-bellied rat
- New England cottontail
- Black-tailed gerbil
- California vole
Animals with the same weight as a Gunnison’s prairie dog
What other animals weight around 798 grams (1.76 lbs)?
- Bengal mongoose weighting 741 grams
- Moluccan flying fox weighting 728 grams
- Southern brown bandicoot weighting 825 grams
- Small-toothed sportive lemur weighting 955 grams
- Mountain beaver weighting 806 grams
- D’Albertis’ ringtail possum weighting 796 grams
- Long-nosed short-tailed opossum weighting 765 grams
- Long-tailed ground squirrel weighting 743 grams
- Northern greater galago weighting 812 grams
- Chiriqui pocket gopher weighting 650 grams
Animals with the same size as a Gunnison’s prairie dog
Also reaching around 27.9 cm (0′ 11″) in size do these animals:
- Black-tailed prairie dog gets as big as 29.4 cm (1′ 0″)
- Baja California rock squirrel gets as big as 24.5 cm (0′ 10″)
- Brown four-eyed opossum gets as big as 26.1 cm (0′ 11″)
- Black-footed tree-rat gets as big as 30.1 cm (1′ 0″)
- Brown-eared woolly opossum gets as big as 27.3 cm (0′ 11″)
- Northern sportive lemur gets as big as 28 cm (1′ 0″)
- Utah prairie dog gets as big as 28.8 cm (1′ 0″)
- Bare-tailed woolly opossum gets as big as 22.4 cm (0′ 9″)
- Conover’s tuco-tuco gets as big as 25.8 cm (0′ 11″)
- Rufous elephant shrew gets as big as 25 cm (0′ 10″)