How many baby Plains pocket gophers are in a litter?
A Plains pocket gopher (Geomys bursarius) usually gives birth to around 3 babies.With 1 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 3 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 20 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 5 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 14.6 cm (0′ 6″). They are a member of the Geomyidae family (genus: Geomys). An adult Plains pocket gopher grows up to a size of 16.8 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 plains pocket gopher (Geomys bursarius) is one of 35 species of pocket gophers, so named in reference to their externally located, fur-lined cheek pouches. They are burrowing animals, found in grasslands and agricultural land across the Great Plains of North America, from Manitoba to Texas. Pocket gophers are the most highly fossorial rodents found in North America.
Other animals of the family Geomyidae
Plains pocket gopher is a member of the Geomyidae, as are these animals:
- Smoky pocket gopher with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Tropical pocket gopher with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Chiriqui pocket gopher weighting only 650 grams
- Alcorn’s pocket gopher weighting only 150 grams
- Smoky pocket gopher weighting only 150 grams
- Knox Jones’s pocket gopher weighting only 172 grams
- Desert pocket gopher with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Darien pocket gopher weighting only 437 grams
- Variable pocket gopher weighting only 615 grams
- Mazama pocket gopher with 3 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Plains pocket gopher
Those animals also give birth to 3 babies at once:
- Eastern broad-toothed field mouse
- Eastern mole
- Hog badger
- Smooth-coated otter
- Chiriqui brown mouse
- Hoary fox
- Dolorous grass mouse
- California chipmunk
- Long-nosed dasyure
- Bushy-tailed woodrat
Animals that get as old as a Plains pocket gopher
Other animals that usually reach the age of 7.17 years:
- Jamaican coney with 8.25 years
- Greater musky fruit bat with 8 years
- Snowshoe hare with 8 years
- Southeastern myotis with 6 years
- Long-eared hedgehog with 6.75 years
- Orange-bellied Himalayan squirrel with 7.08 years
- Gray short-tailed opossum with 6 years
- Arctic hare with 7 years
- Common degu with 7.08 years
- Lesser Egyptian jerboa with 6 years
Animals with the same weight as a Plains pocket gopher
What other animals weight around 179 grams (0.39 lbs)?
- Large mosaic-tailed rat weighting 209 grams
- Chacoan tuco-tuco weighting 166 grams
- Smoky pocket gopher weighting 150 grams
- Knox Jones’s pocket gopher weighting 172 grams
- Pygmy ringtail possum weighting 152 grams
- Rajah spiny rat weighting 150 grams
- Speckled dasyure weighting 212 grams
- American pika weighting 158 grams
- Little golden-mantled flying fox weighting 184 grams
- Luzon striped rat weighting 152 grams
Animals with the same size as a Plains pocket gopher
Also reaching around 16.8 cm (0′ 7″) in size do these animals:
- Pygmy treeshrew gets as big as 18.5 cm (0′ 8″)
- Four-striped ground squirrel gets as big as 18.2 cm (0′ 8″)
- Admiralty flying fox gets as big as 17.9 cm (0′ 8″)
- White-throated woodrat gets as big as 17.6 cm (0′ 7″)
- Gray mouse lemur gets as big as 14 cm (0′ 6″)
- Woolly mouse opossum gets as big as 16.8 cm (0′ 7″)
- Voalavoanala gets as big as 14.2 cm (0′ 6″)
- Tiny tuco-tuco gets as big as 15.7 cm (0′ 7″)
- Tawitawi forest rat gets as big as 19 cm (0′ 8″)
- Southern African hedgehog gets as big as 18.2 cm (0′ 8″)