How many baby Pygmy ringtail possums are in a litter?
A Pygmy ringtail possum (Pseudochirulus mayeri) usually gives birth to around 1 babies.
Upon birth, they weight 275 grams (0.61 lbs) and measure 4 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Pseudocheiridae family (genus: Pseudochirulus). An adult Pygmy ringtail possum grows up to a size of 19.8 cm (0′ 8″).
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 pygmy ringtail possum (Pseudochirulus mayeri) is a species of marsupial in the family Pseudocheiridae. It is found in West Papua, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea in montane forest regions. They are “widespread along the Central Cordillera” and live at elevations between 1,500 and 3,600 metres (4,900 and 11,800 ft) above sea level.”Pygmy ringtails are herbivores or “arboreal folivores” that eat pollen, lichen, fungus and “epiphytic moss.” P. mayeri also eat the bark of trees, which provides them with calcium and potassium. They have “large incisor” teeth which help with “clipping forage from plants” and have “selenodont molars” that help with “shredding ingested foliage.” They have “an enlarged cecum that acts as a fermentation chamber” and allows “gut bacteria to breakdown [sic] plant tissue.” The extra retention time allows the pygmy ringtail to obtain more nutrients from the ingested forage.
Other animals of the family Pseudocheiridae
Pygmy ringtail possum is a member of the Pseudocheiridae, as are these animals:
- Weyland ringtail possum weighting only 456 grams
- Plush-coated ringtail possum with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Green ringtail possum with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Painted ringtail possum with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Lemur-like ringtail possum with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Painted ringtail possum with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Herbert River ringtail possum with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Pseudocheirus schlegeli weighting only 256 grams
- Reclusive ringtail possum weighting around 1.4 kilograms (3.09 lbs)
- Lowland ringtail possum with 2 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Pygmy ringtail possum
Those animals also give birth to 1 babies at once:
- Tickell’s bat
- Hartebeest
- Chocolate wattled bat
- Thorold’s deer
- Spotted seal
- Long-tailed chinchilla
- Papuan bandicoot
- Black squirrel monkey
- Preuss’s red colobus
- Greater glider
Animals with the same weight as a Pygmy ringtail possum
What other animals weight around 151 grams (0.33 lbs)?
- Zanzibar bushbaby weighting 147 grams
- Pygmy ringtail possum weighting 152 grams
- Sulawesi stripe-faced fruit bat weighting 172 grams
- Creek groove-toothed swamp rat weighting 121 grams
- Broad-toothed mouse weighting 125 grams
- Javanese flying squirrel weighting 156 grams
- Stephen’s woodrat weighting 149 grams
- Nicobar treeshrew weighting 170 grams
- Ribboned rope squirrel weighting 141 grams
- Yellow-nosed cotton rat weighting 122 grams
Animals with the same size as a Pygmy ringtail possum
Also reaching around 19.8 cm (0′ 8″) in size do these animals:
- Large mosaic-tailed rat gets as big as 20.4 cm (0′ 9″)
- Highland tuco-tuco gets as big as 21.3 cm (0′ 9″)
- Bridges’s degu gets as big as 15.9 cm (0′ 7″)
- Brush-tailed rabbit rat gets as big as 18.9 cm (0′ 8″)
- San Martín Island woodrat gets as big as 18.4 cm (0′ 8″)
- Smoky pocket gopher gets as big as 19.2 cm (0′ 8″)
- Kinabalu squirrel gets as big as 20.3 cm (0′ 8″)
- Gray tree rat gets as big as 19.2 cm (0′ 8″)
- Alston’s mouse opossum gets as big as 19.2 cm (0′ 8″)
- Deppe’s squirrel gets as big as 20 cm (0′ 8″)