How many baby Northern pikas are in a litter?
A Northern pika (Ochotona hyperborea) usually gives birth to around 4 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 28 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 9 grams (0.02 lbs) and measure 5.7 cm (0′ 3″). They are a member of the Ochotonidae family (genus: Ochotona). An adult Northern pika grows up to a size of 16 cm (0′ 7″).
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 pika (Ochotona hyperborea) also known as the Japanese guinea pig is a species of pika found across mountainous regions of northern Asia, from the Ural Mountains to northern Japan and south through Mongolia, Manchuria and northern Korea. An adult northern pika has a body length of 12.5–18.5 centimeters (4.9–7.3 in), and a tail of 0.5–1.2 centimeters (0.20–0.47 in). The pika sheds its fur twice annually, bearing a reddish-brown coat in the summer and grayish-brown coat in winter. It feeds on various plant material and makes “hay piles” for winter use.
Other animals of the family Ochotonidae
Northern pika is a member of the Ochotonidae, as are these animals:
- Tsing-ling pika weighting only 105 grams
- American pika with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Plateau pika with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Sardinian pika raching a size of 22.5 cm (0′ 9″)
- Turkestan red pika with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Ladak pika raching a size of 17.7 cm (0′ 7″)
- Ili pika raching a size of 20.3 cm (0′ 8″)
- Pallas’s pika with 7 babies per pregnancy
- Chinese red pika raching a size of 24.5 cm (0′ 10″)
- Alpine pika with 3 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Northern pika
Those animals also give birth to 4 babies at once:
- Lodgepole chipmunk
- Sody’s tree rat
- Golden jackal
- Northern birch mouse
- Turkestan rat
- Nectomys squamipes
- Mountain cottontail
- Hoary marmot
- Oligoryzomys longicaudatus
- American mink
Animals with the same weight as a Northern pika
What other animals weight around 120 grams (0.26 lbs)?
- Texas kangaroo rat weighting 106 grams
- Island tube-nosed fruit bat weighting 107 grams
- Dobson’s epauletted fruit bat weighting 121 grams
- Woolly mouse opossum weighting 107 grams
- Franquet’s epauletted fruit bat weighting 119 grams
- Southern three-striped opossum weighting 112 grams
- Crest-tailed mulgara weighting 100 grams
- Santander dwarf squirrel weighting 99 grams
- White-tipped tufted-tailed rat weighting 100 grams
- European water vole weighting 120 grams
Animals with the same size as a Northern pika
Also reaching around 16 cm (0′ 7″) in size do these animals:
- Broad-toothed mouse gets as big as 16.6 cm (0′ 7″)
- Brush-tailed rabbit rat gets as big as 18.9 cm (0′ 8″)
- Hainan gymnure gets as big as 13.5 cm (0′ 6″)
- Mindanao mountain rat gets as big as 12.8 cm (0′ 6″)
- Robinson’s mouse opossum gets as big as 15 cm (0′ 6″)
- Eastern rock elephant shrew gets as big as 12.8 cm (0′ 6″)
- Red-bellied mosaic-tailed rat gets as big as 14.2 cm (0′ 6″)
- Phillips’s gerbil gets as big as 14.4 cm (0′ 6″)
- Thirteen-lined ground squirrel gets as big as 13.7 cm (0′ 6″)
- Buller’s chipmunk gets as big as 13.6 cm (0′ 6″)