How many baby Northern Idaho ground squirrels are in a litter?
A Northern Idaho ground squirrel (Spermophilus brunneus) usually gives birth to around 7 babies.With 1 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 7 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 24 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 6 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 5.6 cm (0′ 3″). They are a member of the Sciuridae family (genus: Spermophilus). An adult Northern Idaho ground squirrel grows up to a size of 18.1 cm (0′ 8″).
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 northern Idaho ground squirrel (Urocitellus brunneus) is a species of the largest genus of ground squirrels. This species and the Southern Idaho ground squirrel were previously considered conspecific, together called the Idaho ground squirrel.
Other animals of the family Sciuridae
Northern Idaho ground squirrel is a member of the Sciuridae, as are these animals:
- Northern flying squirrel with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Mohave ground squirrel with 6 babies per pregnancy
- Menzbier’s marmot with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Arrow flying squirrel weighting only 49 grams
- Least chipmunk with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Wyoming ground squirrel with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Kashmir flying squirrel with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Richmond’s squirrel with 2 babies per pregnancy
- White-tailed prairie dog with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Gray-footed chipmunk with 3 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Northern Idaho ground squirrel
Those animals also give birth to 7 babies at once:
- Ooldea dunnart
- Prairie shrew
- Common opossum
- Pallas’s pika
- Drylands vesper mouse
- Taiga shrew
- Tawny-bellied cotton rat
- Mediterranean water shrew
- Lesser bandicoot rat
- Flat-skulled shrew
Animals with the same weight as a Northern Idaho ground squirrel
What other animals weight around 300 grams (0.66 lbs)?
- Magellanic tuco-tuco weighting 272 grams
- Greater hedgehog tenrec weighting 277 grams
- Guyenne spiny rat weighting 285 grams
- Boyacá spiny rat weighting 284 grams
- Borneo black-banded squirrel weighting 324 grams
- Andean mountain cavy weighting 255 grams
- White-winged flying fox weighting 343 grams
- Yellow-faced pocket gopher weighting 266 grams
- Golden Atlantic tree-rat weighting 243 grams
- Robust tuco-tuco weighting 249 grams
Animals with the same size as a Northern Idaho ground squirrel
Also reaching around 18.1 cm (0′ 8″) in size do these animals:
- Kintampo rope squirrel gets as big as 18.3 cm (0′ 8″)
- Short-furred dasyure gets as big as 18 cm (0′ 8″)
- Royle’s pika gets as big as 17.7 cm (0′ 7″)
- Pseudocheirus schlegeli gets as big as 21.6 cm (0′ 9″)
- Edible dormouse gets as big as 16.7 cm (0′ 7″)
- Bangs’s mountain squirrel gets as big as 16.2 cm (0′ 7″)
- Biak glider gets as big as 14.5 cm (0′ 6″)
- Lesser Angolan epauletted fruit bat gets as big as 16.2 cm (0′ 7″)
- Red-cheeked flying squirrel gets as big as 18.1 cm (0′ 8″)
- Striped treeshrew gets as big as 18.5 cm (0′ 8″)