How many baby Lesser false vampire bats are in a litter?
A Lesser false vampire bat (Megaderma spasma) usually gives birth to around 1 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 80 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 10 grams (0.02 lbs) and measure 1.5 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Megadermatidae family (genus: Megaderma). An adult Lesser false vampire bat grows up to a size of 7.3 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 lesser false vampire bat (Megaderma spasma) is a bat found in South Asia and Southeast Asia from Sri Lanka and India in the west to Indonesia and the Philippines in the east. They live in caves and tree hollows. They are insectivorous.The lesser false vampire bat has a wingspan of up to 30 centimetres (12 in) and have a head-and-body length of around 10 centimetres (3.9 in). Their forearms are normally around 7 centimetres (2.8 in).The lesser false vampire bat has yellowish veins through the wing, and when the wings are spread with light behind, they are given a prominent yellow/orange tinge. Their body colour ranges from grey-brown to blue-brown.Lesser false vampire bats live in rock crevices, caves, foliage and hollow trees, depending on availability, as well as hanging and sleeping on trees in general.Megaderma spasma is from the order Chiroptera and family Megadermatidae which comprises four genera and five species. M. spasma also known as lesser false vampire. Its type locality was in Indonesia, Molucca Islands and Ternate. There are two specimens of M. spasma collected in Sarawak Museum Unimas, one from Niah and another one from batu 16, Ulu Gombak. M. spasma was distributed in India to Indochina and Malay Peninsula, Sri Lanka, Andaman Islands, Sumatra, Borneo, Moluccas, Philippines, Sulawesi and other Indonesian islands. In Borneo, it can found in Sepilok, Darvel Bay area in Sabah, Niah and Kuching in Sarawak, upper S. Kapuas in West and upper S. Tengah in South Kalimantan. It is most closely related to the greater false vampire bat, which is the only other species in the genus Megaderma.M. spasma has fur pale grey to grey-brown in colour. Its noseleaf has long dorsal lobe with stiffened central ridge and broad convex flaps on the sides. Its ears are very large, joined at the base and it has no visible tail. Its echolocation pulses are short, low in density and broadband and its large ears are sensitive to echoes returning from their pulses and also sensitive to the sounds that prey generates. M. spasma usually roosts in groups in caves, pits, building, and hollow trees. M. spasma favours grasshoppers and moths but sometimes they eat small vertebrates including other bats. They have well developed, forward-pointing eyes and can locate prey visually.M. spasma usually roosts in a group of 3–30 individuals. Their ecological importance may be both positive and negative to humans. They eat some insects which harm human crops, but they may carry and transmit certain diseases.The bat is known as කන් දිගු බොරු ලේ වවුලා (kan-digu boru le wawula – meaning “long eared false vampire bat”) in Sinhala.
Other animals of the family Megadermatidae
Lesser false vampire bat is a member of the Megadermatidae, as are these animals:
- Greater false vampire bat with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Ghost bat with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Yellow-winged bat with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Heart-nosed bat with 1 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Lesser false vampire bat
Those animals also give birth to 1 babies at once:
- Cuvier’s gazelle
- Lemur-like ringtail possum
- Four-striped ground squirrel
- Franquet’s epauletted fruit bat
- Zanzibar bushbaby
- Kloss’s gibbon
- Sika deer
- Silvery gibbon
- Thomas’s rope squirrel
- Leschenault’s rousette
Animals with the same weight as a Lesser false vampire bat
What other animals weight around 24 grams (0.05 lbs)?
- Yellow-winged bat weighting 23 grams
- Eastern heather vole weighting 27 grams
- São Paulo grass mouse weighting 27 grams
- Pleasant bolo mouse weighting 27 grams
- Zacatecan deer mouse weighting 27 grams
- Least gerbil weighting 26 grams
- North African gerbil weighting 27 grams
- Davis’s round-eared bat weighting 20 grams
- Savi’s pine vole weighting 20 grams
- Akodon albiventer weighting 26 grams