How many baby Rock voles are in a litter?
A Rock vole (Microtus chrotorrhinus) usually gives birth to around 3 babies.With 2 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 6 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 20 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 2 grams (0 lbs) and measure 1.8 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Microtus). An adult Rock vole grows up to a size of 10.7 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 rock vole (Microtus chrotorrhinus) is a medium-sized vole found in eastern North America. It is also called the yellow-nosed vole.This species is similar in appearance to the larger Taiga vole. It has short ears and a long tail which is paler underneath. The fur is greyish-brown with grey underparts and a yellowish nose. Its length averages 15 cm (5.9 in) long with a 5-cm tail, and it weighs about 39 g (1.4 oz).They are found on moist rocky slopes in eastern Canada and the northeastern United States. They make runways through the surface growth and shallow burrows. They are usually found in small colonies.They feed on grasses, mosses, underground fungi and berries (especially bunchberry), and also sometimes on caterpillars. Predators include hawks, owls, snakes and small carnivorous mammals.The female vole has two or three litters of four to seven young. They are active year-round, mainly during the day, but are rarely seen. It has been designated as a species of concern in some parts of its range.
Other animals of the family Muridae
Rock vole is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Zagros Mountains mouse-like hamster with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Chestnut white-bellied rat with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Western New Guinea mountain rat raching a size of 13.1 cm (0′ 6″)
- Glacier rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Black-tailed tree rat weighting only 125 grams
- Nephelomys levipes weighting only 60 grams
- Long-haired rat weighting only 221 grams
- Gambian pouched rat with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Hoffmann’s rat with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Arianus’s rat weighting only 70 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Rock vole
Those animals also give birth to 3 babies at once:
- Great jerboa
- Kivu long-haired shrew
- Mazama pocket gopher
- Striped hog-nosed skunk
- Allen’s squirrel
- Greater hedgehog tenrec
- Woodland thicket rat
- American hog-nosed skunk
- Woolly hare
- Sumichrast’s harvest mouse
Animals with the same weight as a Rock vole
What other animals weight around 39 grams (0.09 lbs)?
- Northern grass mouse weighting 44 grams
- Little collared fruit bat weighting 44 grams
- Chiapan deer mouse weighting 40 grams
- Dusky hopping mouse weighting 39 grams
- Silent grass mouse weighting 39 grams
- Rudd’s mouse weighting 35 grams
- Variable grass mouse weighting 40 grams
- Jackson’s soft-furred mouse weighting 39 grams
- Caatinga vesper mouse weighting 39 grams
- Montane fish-eating rat weighting 39 grams
Animals with the same size as a Rock vole
Also reaching around 10.7 cm (0′ 5″) in size do these animals:
- Himalayan striped squirrel gets as big as 10.4 cm (0′ 5″)
- Bornean water shrew gets as big as 10 cm (0′ 4″)
- Neblina slender opossum gets as big as 12.3 cm (0′ 5″)
- Paraguayan fat-tailed mouse opossum gets as big as 12.7 cm (0′ 5″)
- Feather-tailed possum gets as big as 11.7 cm (0′ 5″)
- Northern water rat gets as big as 12.6 cm (0′ 5″)
- Cape elephant shrew gets as big as 11.9 cm (0′ 5″)
- California kangaroo rat gets as big as 11.5 cm (0′ 5″)
- Highland brush mouse gets as big as 12.7 cm (0′ 5″)
- Western red-backed vole gets as big as 9.8 cm (0′ 4″)