How many baby Indian desert jirds are in a litter?
A Indian desert jird (Meriones hurrianae) usually gives birth to around 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 4 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 1.5 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Meriones). An adult Indian desert jird grows up to a size of 15 cm (0′ 6″).
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 Indian desert jird or Indian desert gerbil (Meriones hurrianae) is a species of jird found mainly in the Thar Desert in India. Jirds are closely related to gerbils.
Other animals of the family Muridae
Indian desert jird is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Olive grass mouse weighting only 39 grams
- Natal multimammate mouse weighting only 62 grams
- King rat (animal) weighting only 420 grams
- Smoky mouse weighting only 68 grams
- Western New Guinea mountain rat raching a size of 13.1 cm (0′ 6″)
- Edward’s swamp rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Ural field mouse with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Pleasant gerbil weighting only 13 grams
- Lesser Wilfred’s mouse weighting only 22 grams
- Montane vole with 5 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Indian desert jird
Those animals also give birth to 4 babies at once:
- Gray four-eyed opossum
- Fawn-colored mouse
- Black-tailed gerbil
- Dark bolo mouse
- Montane wood mouse
- Short-tailed bandicoot rat
- Southern African hedgehog
- Turkestan rat
- Merriam’s pocket mouse
- African grass rat
Animals with the same weight as a Indian desert jird
What other animals weight around 71 grams (0.16 lbs)?
- Long-nosed mosaic-tailed rat weighting 82 grams
- Long-tailed fruit bat weighting 68 grams
- Greater musky fruit bat weighting 79 grams
- Philippine tube-nosed fruit bat weighting 68 grams
- Fringed fruit-eating bat weighting 63 grams
- Northern collared lemming weighting 58 grams
- Ethiopian epauletted fruit bat weighting 66 grams
- Broad-striped tube-nosed fruit bat weighting 85 grams
- California vole weighting 57 grams
- Euryoryzomys macconnelli weighting 62 grams