How many baby Red-cheeked ground squirrels are in a litter?
A Red-cheeked ground squirrel (Spermophilus erythrogenys) usually gives birth to around 7 babies.With 1 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 7 babies.
Upon birth, they weight 5 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 5.6 cm (0′ 3″). They are a member of the Sciuridae family (genus: Spermophilus). An adult Red-cheeked ground squirrel grows up to a size of 29.6 cm (1′ 0″).
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 red-cheeked ground squirrel (Spermophilus erythrogenys) is a species of rodent in the family Sciuridae. It is commonly referred to as the red-cheeked ground souslik and there are several recognized subspecies. It is found in central Asia. Spermophilus brunnescens (Belyaev, 1943), Spermophilus heptneri (Vasil’eva, 1964) and Spermophilus ungae (Martino, 1923) are accepted as synonyms. There is some controversy over whether Spermophilus pallidicauda and Spermophilus brevicauda should be regarded as synonyms or full species.
Other animals of the family Sciuridae
Red-cheeked ground squirrel is a member of the Sciuridae, as are these animals:
- Small sun squirrel weighting only 174 grams
- Merriam’s chipmunk with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Cliff chipmunk with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Forest giant squirrel with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Eastern chipmunk raching a size of 14.6 cm (0′ 6″)
- Black-eared squirrel raching a size of 9.5 cm (0′ 4″)
- Ruwenzori sun squirrel with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Mexican ground squirrel with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Grizzled giant squirrel with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Travancore flying squirrel with 2 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Red-cheeked ground squirrel
Those animals also give birth to 7 babies at once: