How many baby Mountain weasels are in a litter?
A Mountain weasel (Mustela altaica) usually gives birth to around 5 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 40 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 1 grams (0 lbs) and measure 2.1 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Mustelidae family (genus: Mustela). An adult Mountain weasel grows up to a size of 24.4 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 weasel (Mustela altaica), also known as the pale weasel, Altai weasel or solongoi, primarily lives in high-altitude environments, as well as rocky tundra and grassy woodlands.This weasel rests in rock crevices, tree trunks, and abandoned burrows of other animals or the animals it previously hunted. The home range size of this animal is currently unknown. Geographical distribution for this species lies in parts of Asia from Kazakhstan, Tibet, and the Himalayas to Mongolia, northeastern China, and southern Siberia. The most common area for this species, however, is Ladakh, India. The conservation status, according to the IUCN, is near threatened because it is considered to be in significant decline and requires monitoring mainly because of habitat and resource loss.
Other animals of the family Mustelidae
Mountain weasel is a member of the Mustelidae, as are these animals:
- Back-striped weasel weighting around 1.5 kilograms (3.31 lbs)
- Bornean ferret-badger with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Molina’s hog-nosed skunk with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Chinese ferret-badger with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Stoat with 6 babies per pregnancy
- Nilgiri marten weighting around 2.04 kilograms (4.5 lbs)
- European mink with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Hairy-nosed otter weighting around 5.97 kilograms (13.16 lbs)
- European polecat with 8 babies per pregnancy
- Amazon weasel weighting only 268 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Mountain weasel
Those animals also give birth to 5 babies at once:
- Northwestern deer mouse
- Spectacled dormouse
- Long-clawed shrew
- Yellow ground squirrel
- Mexican ground squirrel
- Grey dwarf hamster
- Northern gracile opossum
- Wood lemming
- Kellen’s dormouse
- Alpine shrew
Animals with the same weight as a Mountain weasel
What other animals weight around 180 grams (0.4 lbs)?
- Brush-tailed phascogale weighting 193 grams
- Short-tailed bandicoot rat weighting 178 grams
- Smoky pocket gopher weighting 150 grams
- Holochilus brasiliensis weighting 155 grams
- Mendoza tuco-tuco weighting 179 grams
- Large vlei rat weighting 192 grams
- Attwater’s pocket gopher weighting 144 grams
- Townsend’s ground squirrel weighting 207 grams
- Silvery mole-rat weighting 160 grams
- Plantain squirrel weighting 210 grams
Animals with the same size as a Mountain weasel
Also reaching around 24.4 cm (0′ 10″) in size do these animals:
- Afghan pika gets as big as 19.7 cm (0′ 8″)
- Striped bandicoot gets as big as 26.7 cm (0′ 11″)
- Bare-tailed woolly mouse opossum gets as big as 20.4 cm (0′ 9″)
- Brandt’s hedgehog gets as big as 20.7 cm (0′ 9″)
- Bornean mountain ground squirrel gets as big as 20.3 cm (0′ 8″)
- Uinta ground squirrel gets as big as 21.9 cm (0′ 9″)
- Müller’s giant Sunda rat gets as big as 23.9 cm (0′ 10″)
- Ihering’s Atlantic spiny rat gets as big as 19.7 cm (0′ 8″)
- Gray four-eyed opossum gets as big as 26.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- Smoky flying squirrel gets as big as 22.9 cm (0′ 10″)