How many baby Linnaeus’s mouse opossums are in a litter?
A Linnaeus’s mouse opossum (Marmosa murina) usually gives birth to around 7 babies.With 2 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 14 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 13 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 110 grams (0.24 lbs) and measure 13.3 cm (0′ 6″). They are a member of the Didelphidae family (genus: Marmosa). An adult Linnaeus’s mouse opossum grows up to a size of 12 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.
Linnaeus’s mouse opossum (Marmosa murina), also known as the common or murine mouse opossum, is a South American marsupial of the family Didelphidae.
Other animals of the family Didelphidae
Linnaeus’s mouse opossum is a member of the Didelphidae, as are these animals:
- Southern three-striped opossum weighting only 112 grams
- Aceramarca gracile opossum weighting only 20 grams
- Tyler’s mouse opossum with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Yellow-sided opossum with 12 babies per pregnancy
- Panama slender opossum weighting only 29 grams
- Gray short-tailed opossum with 7 babies per pregnancy
- One-striped opossum weighting only 55 grams
- Big-eared opossum with 6 babies per pregnancy
- Northern gracile opossum with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Dusky slender opossum with 5 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Linnaeus’s mouse opossum
Those animals also give birth to 7 babies at once:
- Red-cheeked ground squirrel
- Tawny-bellied cotton rat
- Laxmann’s shrew
- Ooldea dunnart
- Little long-tailed dunnart
- Taiga shrew
- Long-tailed planigale
- Richardson’s ground squirrel
- Drylands vesper mouse
- Prairie shrew
Animals with the same weight as a Linnaeus’s mouse opossum
What other animals weight around 36 grams (0.08 lbs)?
- Lesser great leaf-nosed bat weighting 33 grams
- Mearns’s grasshopper mouse weighting 30 grams
- Selangor pygmy flying squirrel weighting 30 grams
- Akodon sylvanus weighting 39 grams
- Broad-headed spiny rat weighting 30 grams
- Abrothrix longipilis weighting 38 grams
- Naked-eared deer mouse weighting 40 grams
- Mitchell’s hopping mouse weighting 42 grams
- Japanese water shrew weighting 35 grams
- Incan hocicudo weighting 34 grams
Animals with the same size as a Linnaeus’s mouse opossum
Also reaching around 12 cm (0′ 5″) in size do these animals:
- Altiplano grass mouse gets as big as 9.7 cm (0′ 4″)
- Fawn antechinus gets as big as 11.4 cm (0′ 5″)
- Painted spiny pocket mouse gets as big as 11.4 cm (0′ 5″)
- Western chestnut mouse gets as big as 10.1 cm (0′ 4″)
- Mindanao lowland forest mouse gets as big as 10.9 cm (0′ 5″)
- Lowland mosaic-tailed rat gets as big as 12.8 cm (0′ 6″)
- Island tube-nosed fruit bat gets as big as 13.4 cm (0′ 6″)
- Chisel-toothed kangaroo rat gets as big as 11.2 cm (0′ 5″)
- Northern caenolestid gets as big as 10.6 cm (0′ 5″)
- Long-tailed pocket mouse gets as big as 9.7 cm (0′ 4″)