How many baby Russian desmans are in a litter?
A Russian desman (Desmana moschata) 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 46 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 200 grams (0.44 lbs) and measure 0.4 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Talpidae family (genus: Desmana). An adult Russian desman grows up to a size of 20.3 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 Russian desman (Desmana moschata) (Russian: выхухоль vykhukhol’) is a small semiaquatic mammal that inhabits the Volga, Don and Ural River basins in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. It constructs burrows into the banks of ponds and slow-moving streams, but prefers small, overgrown ponds with abundance of insects, crayfish and amphibians. The Russian desman often lives in small (usually not related) groups of two to five animals, and appears to have a complex (but largely unstudied) communication and social system.
Other animals of the family Talpidae
Russian desman is a member of the Talpidae, as are these animals:
- Japanese mountain mole with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Sado mole with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Japanese mole with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Small Japanese mole with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Gansu mole raching a size of 8.9 cm (0′ 4″)
- Pyrenean desman with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Roman mole weighting only 92 grams
- Large mole with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Blind mole weighting only 70 grams
- Kloss’s mole with 4 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Russian desman
Those animals also give birth to 3 babies at once:
- Swamp rabbit
- Elias’s Atlantic spiny rat
- Large-eared tenrec
- Mitchell’s hopping mouse
- Northern mole vole
- Western red-backed vole
- Ash-grey mouse
- Hairy-footed gerbil
- Long-clawed mole vole
- Eastern pygmy possum
Animals with the same weight as a Russian desman
What other animals weight around 420 grams (0.93 lbs)?
- Striped possum weighting 413 grams
- European hamster weighting 429 grams
- Columbian ground squirrel weighting 471 grams
- Silky tuco-tuco weighting 400 grams
- Mutable sun squirrel weighting 390 grams
- Allen’s woodrat weighting 368 grams
- Allen’s squirrel weighting 465 grams
- Smoky pocket gopher weighting 403 grams
- Bougainville naked-tailed rat weighting 397 grams
- Masoala fork-marked lemur weighting 409 grams
Animals with the same size as a Russian desman
Also reaching around 20.3 cm (0′ 8″) in size do these animals:
- Long-eared hedgehog gets as big as 21 cm (0′ 9″)
- Smoky pocket gopher gets as big as 21.4 cm (0′ 9″)
- Halmahera naked-backed fruit bat gets as big as 17.8 cm (0′ 8″)
- Gray tree rat gets as big as 19.2 cm (0′ 8″)
- Cotton-top tamarin gets as big as 24 cm (0′ 10″)
- Tawitawi forest rat gets as big as 19 cm (0′ 8″)
- Davao squirrel gets as big as 21 cm (0′ 9″)
- Texas pocket gopher gets as big as 18.4 cm (0′ 8″)
- Straw-coloured fruit bat gets as big as 18.2 cm (0′ 8″)
- Black jackrabbit gets as big as 23.9 cm (0′ 10″)