How many baby Prairie voles are in a litter?
A Prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) usually gives birth to around 3 babies.With 4 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 12 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 21 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 2 grams (0 lbs) and measure 3.2 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Microtus). An adult Prairie vole grows up to a size of 12.2 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 prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) is a small vole found in central North America.The vole has long, coarse grayish-brown fur on the upper portion of the body and yellowish fur on the lower portion of the body. It has short ears and a short tail, which is somewhat darker on top.
Other animals of the family Muridae
Prairie vole is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Oldfield white-bellied rat weighting only 81 grams
- Rajah spiny rat with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Natal multimammate mouse weighting only 62 grams
- Melanomys zunigae weighting only 53 grams
- Fat-tailed gerbil with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Brukkaros pygmy rock mouse weighting only 20 grams
- Large-scaled mosaic-tailed rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Dressy Oldfield mouse weighting only 76 grams
- Euryoryzomys legatus weighting only 61 grams
- Mount Apo forest mouse weighting only 34 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Prairie vole
Those animals also give birth to 3 babies at once:
- Swamp musk shrew
- Black-footed ferret
- Water opossum
- Asian house shrew
- Gansu pika
- Pampas fox
- Chinese bamboo rat
- Western chestnut mouse
- Hog badger
- Swinhoe’s striped squirrel
Animals with the same weight as a Prairie vole
What other animals weight around 42 grams (0.09 lbs)?
- Jalapan pine vole weighting 40 grams
- Chestnut tree mouse weighting 46 grams
- Dark fruit-eating bat weighting 35 grams
- Southern vole weighting 35 grams
- Least groove-toothed swamp rat weighting 50 grams
- Ord’s kangaroo rat weighting 50 grams
- Luzon Cordillera forest mouse weighting 34 grams
- South African pouched mouse weighting 50 grams
- Long-tailed vole weighting 44 grams
- Red-nosed mouse weighting 46 grams
Animals with the same size as a Prairie vole
Also reaching around 12.2 cm (0′ 5″) in size do these animals:
- Gaumer’s spiny pocket mouse gets as big as 11.6 cm (0′ 5″)
- Gray-tailed vole gets as big as 11 cm (0′ 5″)
- Glacier rat gets as big as 12.4 cm (0′ 5″)
- Tyler’s mouse opossum gets as big as 11.9 cm (0′ 5″)
- Cape York melomys gets as big as 13.6 cm (0′ 6″)
- Papua grassland mosaic-tailed rat gets as big as 10.4 cm (0′ 5″)
- Pygmy tarsier gets as big as 10 cm (0′ 4″)
- Juliana’s golden mole gets as big as 10 cm (0′ 4″)
- Rümmler’s brush mouse gets as big as 10.1 cm (0′ 4″)
- Neblina slender opossum gets as big as 12.3 cm (0′ 5″)