How many baby Shrew gymnures are in a litter?
A Shrew gymnure (Neotetracus sinensis) usually gives birth to around 4 babies.With 2 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 8 babies.
Upon birth, they weight 2 grams (0 lbs) and measure 2.9 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Erinaceidae family (genus: Neotetracus). An adult Shrew gymnure grows up to a size of 11.7 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 shrew gymnure, or shrew hedgehog (Neotetracus sinensis), is a species of mammal in the family Erinaceidae and is the only species in the genus Neotetracus. It is found in China, Myanmar, and Vietnam.
Other animals of the family Erinaceidae
Shrew gymnure is a member of the Erinaceidae, as are these animals:
- Southern white-breasted hedgehog with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Indian hedgehog with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Indian long-eared hedgehog with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Long-eared hedgehog with 3 babies per pregnancy
- European hedgehog with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Hugh’s hedgehog raching a size of 20 cm (0′ 8″)
- Hainan gymnure weighting only 52 grams
- Short-tailed gymnure with 2 babies per pregnancy
- North African hedgehog with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Hainan gymnure weighting only 58 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Shrew gymnure
Those animals also give birth to 4 babies at once:
- Sody’s tree rat
- Red-tailed chipmunk
- Greater stripe-backed shrew
- Turkestan rat
- Plains pocket mouse
- Gunnison’s prairie dog
- Bare-tailed woolly opossum
- Bush dog
- Lesser capybara
- Sandstone false antechinus
Animals with the same size as a Shrew gymnure
Also reaching around 11.7 cm (0′ 5″) in size do these animals:
- Elegant fat-tailed mouse opossum gets as big as 12 cm (0′ 5″)
- Arianus’s rat gets as big as 13.2 cm (0′ 6″)
- Island tube-nosed fruit bat gets as big as 13.4 cm (0′ 6″)
- Prince Demidoff’s bushbaby gets as big as 12 cm (0′ 5″)
- Altiplano grass mouse gets as big as 9.7 cm (0′ 4″)
- Alpine chipmunk gets as big as 10.4 cm (0′ 5″)
- Masked white-tailed rat gets as big as 13.5 cm (0′ 6″)
- Peromyscus maniculatus gets as big as 9.5 cm (0′ 4″)
- Bushveld elephant shrew gets as big as 11.7 cm (0′ 5″)
- Mountain mosaic-tailed rat gets as big as 11.5 cm (0′ 5″)