How many baby North American least shrews are in a litter?
A North American least shrew (Cryptotis parva) usually gives birth to around 4 babies.With 2 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 8 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 21 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 99 grams (0.22 lbs) and measure 1.9 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Soricidae family (genus: Cryptotis). An adult North American least shrew grows up to a size of 6.8 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 North American least shrew (Cryptotis parva) is one of the smallest mammals, growing to be only up to 3 inches long. It has a long pointed snout and a tail never more than twice the length of its hind foot. The dense fur coat is either grayish-brown or reddish-brown with a white belly. Its fur becomes lighter in the summer and darker in the winter. Although similar in appearance to several species of rodents, all shrews are members of the order Soricomorpha and should not be mistaken for a member of the Rodentia order. The North American least shrew’s eyes are small and its ears are completely concealed within its short fur, giving it very poor eyesight and hearing.
Other animals of the family Soricidae
North American least shrew is a member of the Soricidae, as are these animals:
- Slender shrew with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Thomas’s small-eared shrew weighting only 12 grams
- African black shrew with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Nicobar shrew with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Zarudny’s rock shrew with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Savanna shrew weighting only 10 grams
- Grant’s forest shrew with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Lesser white-toothed shrew with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Nigerian shrew weighting only 23 grams
- Mexican small-eared shrew with 2 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with North American least shrew
Those animals also give birth to 4 babies at once:
- Fawn-colored mouse
- Turkestan rat
- Transcaucasian mole vole
- Tien Shan red-backed vole
- Boehm’s gerbil
- Kit fox
- Bennett’s chinchilla rat
- American mink
- European mink
- Peromyscus maniculatus
Animals that get as old as a North American least shrew
Other animals that usually reach the age of 1.75 years:
- Campbell’s dwarf hamster with 1.75 years
- Long-tailed giant rat with 2 years
- Honey possum with 2 years
- Norway lemming with 2 years
- White-eared opossum with 1.67 years
- Townsend’s mole with 1.5 years
- Arctic shrew with 1.5 years
- Western harvest mouse with 1.5 years
- Hoary bat with 2.08 years
- Tundra vole with 1.75 years
Animals with the same weight as a North American least shrew
What other animals weight around 4 grams (0.01 lbs)?
- Eurasian pygmy shrew weighting 4 grams
- Common thick-thumbed bat weighting 4 grams
- Groove-toothed bat weighting 4 grams
- Rusty pipistrelle weighting 4 grams
- Pygmy shrew tenrec weighting 4 grams
- Percival’s trident bat weighting 4 grams
- Riparian myotis weighting 4 grams
- Pipistrellus babu weighting 4 grams
- Doucet’s musk shrew weighting 4 grams
- Carmen Mountain shrew weighting 4 grams
Animals with the same size as a North American least shrew
Also reaching around 6.8 cm (0′ 3″) in size do these animals:
- Vagrant shrew gets as big as 6.4 cm (0′ 3″)
- Crowned shrew gets as big as 7.2 cm (0′ 3″)
- Ranee mouse gets as big as 7.5 cm (0′ 3″)
- Lowe’s shrew gets as big as 7 cm (0′ 3″)
- Taiwanese brown-toothed shrew gets as big as 6.7 cm (0′ 3″)
- Lesser mouse-tailed bat gets as big as 5.9 cm (0′ 3″)
- Slender harvest mouse gets as big as 7.2 cm (0′ 3″)
- Southern pygmy mouse gets as big as 7.5 cm (0′ 3″)
- Azumi shrew gets as big as 6 cm (0′ 3″)
- Townsend’s big-eared bat gets as big as 5.7 cm (0′ 3″)