How many baby Mountain ground squirrels are in a litter?
A Mountain ground squirrel (Xerus princeps) usually gives birth to around 2 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 45 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 20 grams (0.04 lbs) and measure 11.1 cm (0′ 5″). They are a member of the Sciuridae family (genus: Xerus). An adult Mountain ground squirrel grows up to a size of 24.7 cm (0′ 10″).
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 mountain ground squirrel (Xerus princeps) is a rodent that is native to southwestern Angola, western Namibia, and western South Africa. It is also known as the Kaoko ground squirrel or the Damara ground squirrel.It is the closest relative of the Cape ground squirrel (Latin name Xerus inauris), which is so similar in appearance that the two are difficult to distinguish in the field. Both species have long bushy black and white tails with a white stripe from the shoulder towards the rump. Xerus princeps is slightly larger, on average, than X. inauris, although there is considerable overlap in body size. Differences in skull morphology also distinguish the two species, and the incisors are yellow to orange rather than white as in X. inauris.
Other animals of the family Sciuridae
Mountain ground squirrel is a member of the Sciuridae, as are these animals:
- Jentink’s flying squirrel weighting only 56 grams
- White-tailed antelope squirrel with 8 babies per pregnancy
- Ear-spot squirrel with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Northern flying squirrel with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Mindanao squirrel raching a size of 21 cm (0′ 9″)
- Jungle palm squirrel with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Western gray squirrel with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Red bush squirrel with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Travancore flying squirrel with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Javanese flying squirrel with 2 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Mountain ground squirrel
Those animals also give birth to 2 babies at once:
- Andean mouse
- Highland tuco-tuco
- Eurasian beaver
- Giant white-tailed rat
- Maned wolf
- White-footed tamarin
- Deppe’s squirrel
- Mountain degu
- Eastern chestnut mouse
- Smith’s red rock hare
Animals with the same weight as a Mountain ground squirrel
What other animals weight around 625 grams (1.38 lbs)?
- Gray-backed sportive lemur weighting 506 grams
- Banded linsang weighting 684 grams
- Western gray squirrel weighting 704 grams
- Eastern spotted skunk weighting 568 grams
- Atlantic bamboo rat weighting 600 grams
- Swynnerton’s bush squirrel weighting 675 grams
- Eastern lowland olingo weighting 620 grams
- Angolan slender mongoose weighting 750 grams
- Big-headed African mole-rat weighting 622 grams
- Malayan weasel weighting 569 grams