How many baby Piebald shrews are in a litter?
A Piebald shrew (Diplomesodon pulchellum) usually gives birth to around 5 babies.
Upon birth, they weight 4 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 27.5 cm (0′ 11″). They are a member of the Soricidae family (genus: Diplomesodon). An adult Piebald shrew grows up to a size of 7.9 cm (0′ 4″).
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 piebald shrew (Diplomesodon pulchellum) is a shrew found in the Turan Lowland east of the Caspian Sea in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. It grows to 2–23⁄4 inches in length, and usually hunts for insects and lizards at night. It is the only extant member of the genus Diplomesodon. In 2011, A. Cheke described a new and possibly extinct species based on a 19th-century manuscript: Diplomesodon sonnerati (Sonnerat’s shrew). It was described again in 2018 to meet certain validity requirements of the ICZN code.
Other animals of the family Soricidae
Piebald shrew is a member of the Soricidae, as are these animals:
- Ugandan musk shrew weighting only 23 grams
- Swamp musk shrew with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Hildegarde’s shrew weighting only 10 grams
- Bicolored musk shrew with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Makwassie musk shrew weighting only 6 grams
- Bornean water shrew raching a size of 10 cm (0′ 4″)
- Flat-headed shrew with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Alpine shrew with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Verapaz shrew weighting only 7 grams
- Fox’s shrew with 1 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Piebald shrew
Those animals also give birth to 5 babies at once:
- Arctic hare
- Slender shrew
- Shaw’s jird
- Large vesper mouse
- Christy’s dormouse
- House mouse
- Pygmy rabbit
- Rufous mouse opossum
- Western quoll
- Northern gracile opossum
Animals with the same weight as a Piebald shrew
What other animals weight around 11 grams (0.02 lbs)?
- Broad-eared bat weighting 13 grams
- Short-tailed shrew tenrec weighting 9 grams
- Montane shrew tenrec weighting 13 grams
- Luzon shrew weighting 10 grams
- Isabelle’s ghost bat weighting 12 grams
- Taiva shrew tenrec weighting 12 grams
- Northern bat weighting 10 grams
- Lesser large-headed shrew weighting 12 grams
- Lesser ghost bat weighting 13 grams
- Kellen’s dormouse weighting 10 grams