How many baby Northern red-backed voles are in a litter?
A Northern red-backed vole (Clethrionomys rutilus) usually gives birth to around 5 babies.With 4 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 20 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 24 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 1 grams (0 lbs) and measure 2.9 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Clethrionomys). An adult Northern red-backed vole grows up to a size of 10.9 cm (0′ 5″).
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 red-backed vole (Myodes rutilus) is a small slender vole found in Alaska, northern Canada, Scandinavia and northern Russia.
Other animals of the family Muridae
Northern red-backed vole is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Oligoryzomys fulvescens with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Isabel naked-tailed rat raching a size of 27 cm (0′ 11″)
- Mitchell’s hopping mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Juniper vole with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Grassland mosaic-tailed rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Moncton’s mosaic-tailed rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Beaded wood mouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Buenos Aires leaf-eared mouse weighting only 42 grams
- Gray-bellied tree mouse with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Dusky rat weighting only 146 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Northern red-backed vole
Those animals also give birth to 5 babies at once:
- Water vole (North America)
- Soft-furred rat
- Southern red-backed vole
- Long-tailed shrew
- Kowari
- Crowned shrew
- Lesser hairy-footed dunnart
- Dusky slender opossum
- Cutch rat
- Bobrinski’s jerboa
Animals with the same weight as a Northern red-backed vole
What other animals weight around 19 grams (0.04 lbs)?
- Agile antechinus weighting 22 grams
- Ghost-faced bat weighting 16 grams
- Peruvian vesper mouse weighting 20 grams
- Brown flower bat weighting 16 grams
- Least pygmy squirrel weighting 21 grams
- Mottled-tailed shrew mouse weighting 18 grams
- Agile gracile opossum weighting 22 grams
- Velvety fruit-eating bat weighting 16 grams
- Louise’s spiny mouse weighting 20 grams
- Aceramarca gracile opossum weighting 20 grams
Animals with the same size as a Northern red-backed vole
Also reaching around 10.9 cm (0′ 5″) in size do these animals:
- Elegant fat-tailed mouse opossum gets as big as 12 cm (0′ 5″)
- Pousargues African fat mouse gets as big as 11.6 cm (0′ 5″)
- Golden spiny mouse gets as big as 11.1 cm (0′ 5″)
- Chinese dormouse gets as big as 9.1 cm (0′ 4″)
- Commerson’s roundleaf bat gets as big as 12.7 cm (0′ 5″)
- Common fat-tailed mouse opossum gets as big as 9.4 cm (0′ 4″)
- White-bellied slender opossum gets as big as 11.2 cm (0′ 5″)
- Brazilian gracile opossum gets as big as 9.1 cm (0′ 4″)
- Flat-headed vole gets as big as 11.7 cm (0′ 5″)
- South African pouched mouse gets as big as 11.7 cm (0′ 5″)