How many baby Salt marsh harvest mouses are in a litter?
A Salt marsh harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys raviventris) usually gives birth to around 3 babies.With 1 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 3 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 22 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 1 grams (0 lbs) and measure 4.2 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Reithrodontomys). An adult Salt marsh harvest mouse grows up to a size of 7 cm (0′ 3″).
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 salt marsh harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys raviventris), also known as the red-bellied harvest mouse and sometimes called the saltmarsh harvest mouse, is an endangered rodent endemic to the San Francisco Bay Area salt marshes in CA. There are two distinct subspecies, both endangered and listed together on federal and state endangered species lists. The northern subspecies (Reithrodontomys raviventris halicoetes) is lighter in color and inhabits the northern marshes of the bay, and the southern subspecies (Reithrodontomys raviventris raviventris) lives in the East and South Bay marshes. They are both quite similar in appearance to their congener species, the [Western harvest mouse, R. megalotis], to which they are not closely related. Genetic studies of the northern subspecies have revealed that the salt marsh harvest mouse is most closely related to the plains harvest mouse, R. montanus, (), which occurs now in the Midwest]. Its endangered designation is due to its limited range, historic decline in population and continuing threat of habitat loss due to development encroachment at the perimeter of San Francisco Bay.
Other animals of the family Muridae
Salt marsh harvest mouse is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Sonoran harvest mouse weighting only 20 grams
- Stein’s paramelomys raching a size of 12.5 cm (0′ 5″)
- Kemp’s gerbil with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Large-scaled mosaic-tailed rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Florida mouse with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Oligoryzomys chacoensis weighting only 23 grams
- Mittendorf’s striped grass mouse weighting only 41 grams
- Andean vesper mouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Greater Egyptian gerbil with 3 babies per pregnancy
- São Paulo grass mouse weighting only 27 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Salt marsh harvest mouse
Those animals also give birth to 3 babies at once:
- Bengal fox
- Lesser red musk shrew
- Peters’s mouse
- Sado mole
- Painted spiny pocket mouse
- Dark kangaroo mouse
- Plains harvest mouse
- Allen’s wood mouse
- Elias’s Atlantic spiny rat
- California chipmunk
Animals that get as old as a Salt marsh harvest mouse
Other animals that usually reach the age of 2.58 years:
- Chestnut tree mouse with 2.42 years
- Cape mole-rat with 3 years
- Silky anteater with 2.25 years
- North African elephant shrew with 3 years
- Narrow-nosed planigale with 3 years
- Brown antechinus with 3 years
- Banner-tailed kangaroo rat with 3 years
- Common vole with 3 years
- Brazilian spiny tree-rat with 3.08 years
- Southern Plains woodrat with 2.25 years
Animals with the same weight as a Salt marsh harvest mouse
What other animals weight around 10 grams (0.02 lbs)?
- Burmese whiskered bat weighting 8 grams
- Rhinolophus sedulus weighting 8 grams
- Silver fruit-eating bat weighting 12 grams
- Rafinesque’s big-eared bat weighting 9 grams
- Rafinesque’s big-eared bat weighting 9 grams
- Arcuate horseshoe bat weighting 8 grams
- Tonatia brasiliense weighting 9 grams
- Hairy-faced bat weighting 9 grams
- Pygmy gerbil weighting 8 grams
- Honey possum weighting 9 grams
Animals with the same size as a Salt marsh harvest mouse
Also reaching around 7 cm (0′ 3″) in size do these animals:
- Nelson’s pocket mouse gets as big as 7.9 cm (0′ 4″)
- European free-tailed bat gets as big as 8.4 cm (0′ 4″)
- Saint Lawrence Island shrew gets as big as 6.3 cm (0′ 3″)
- Cinereus shrew gets as big as 5.7 cm (0′ 3″)
- Drouhard’s shrew tenrec gets as big as 7.3 cm (0′ 3″)
- Little desert pocket mouse gets as big as 6.8 cm (0′ 3″)
- North American least shrew gets as big as 6.8 cm (0′ 3″)
- Eurasian harvest mouse gets as big as 5.9 cm (0′ 3″)
- Canyon mouse gets as big as 8.2 cm (0′ 4″)
- Van Zyl’s golden mole gets as big as 8.4 cm (0′ 4″)