How many baby Japanese dormouses are in a litter?
A Japanese dormouse (Glirulus japonicus) 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 31 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 3 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 4.8 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Myoxidae family (genus: Glirulus). An adult Japanese dormouse grows up to a size of 7.2 cm (0′ 3″).
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 Japanese dormouse (Glirulus japonicus) is a species of rodent in the family Gliridae endemic to Japan. It is monotypic within the genus Glirulus. Its natural habitat is temperate forests. In Japanese, it is called yamane (ヤマネ or 山鼠). Among dormice, it has the special ability of running at great speed upside down, suspended from branches. Its main food is insects, berries, nectar, or pollen. It tends to inhabit arboreal nesting sites to avoid interspecific competition with the small Japanese field mouse (Apodemus argenteus) because of their sympatric relationship.
Other animals of the family Myoxidae
Japanese dormouse is a member of the Myoxidae, as are these animals:
- Hazel dormouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Kellen’s dormouse with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Kellen’s dormouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Desert dormouse with 6 babies per pregnancy
- Woolly dormouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Rock dormouse with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Garden dormouse with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Jentink’s dormouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Lorrain dormouse with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Chinese dormouse weighting only 31 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Japanese dormouse
Those animals also give birth to 4 babies at once:
- Greater hamster-rat
- Gerbil mouse
- Gray-tailed vole
- Geata mouse shrew
- Tropical pocket gopher
- Blanford’s jerboa
- Least chipmunk
- Field vole
- European mink
- Hooded skunk
Animals with the same size as a Japanese dormouse
Also reaching around 7.2 cm (0′ 3″) in size do these animals:
- Great Basin pocket mouse gets as big as 8.1 cm (0′ 4″)
- Laxmann’s shrew gets as big as 6.6 cm (0′ 3″)
- Tailed tailless bat gets as big as 5.8 cm (0′ 3″)
- Eastern harvest mouse gets as big as 6.5 cm (0′ 3″)
- Merriam’s pocket mouse gets as big as 5.8 cm (0′ 3″)
- Desert dormouse gets as big as 8.4 cm (0′ 4″)
- Long-tailed brown-toothed shrew gets as big as 6.6 cm (0′ 3″)
- Large-eared tenrec gets as big as 7.1 cm (0′ 3″)
- Lesser tube-nosed fruit bat gets as big as 7.7 cm (0′ 4″)
- Usambara shrew gets as big as 7.9 cm (0′ 4″)