How many baby Southern red-backed voles are in a litter?
A Southern red-backed vole (Clethrionomys gapperi) usually gives birth to around 5 babies.With 2 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 10 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 18 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 1 grams (0 lbs) and measure 2.9 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Clethrionomys). An adult Southern red-backed vole grows up to a size of 10.1 cm (0′ 4″).
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 southern red-backed vole or Gapper’s red-backed vole (Myodes gapperi) is a small slender vole found in Canada and the northern United States. It is closely related to the western red-backed vole (Myodes californius), which lives to the south and west of its range and which is less red with a less sharply bicolored tail.These voles have short slender bodies with a reddish band along the back and a short tail. The sides of the body and head are grey and the underparts are paler. There is a grey color morph in the northeast part of their range. They are 12–16.5 cm (4.7–6.5 in) long with a 4 cm tail and weigh about 6–42 g; average 20.6 g (0.21–1.48 oz; average 0.72 oz).These animals are found in coniferous, deciduous, and mixed forests, often near wetlands. They use runways through the surface growth in warm weather and tunnel through the snow in winter. They are omnivorous feeding on green plants, underground fungi, seeds, nuts, roots, also insects, snails, and berries. They store roots, bulbs, and nuts for later use.Predators include hawks, owls, and mustelids.Female voles have two to four litters of two to eight young in a year.They are active year-round, mostly at night. They use burrows created by other small animals.
Other animals of the family Muridae
Southern red-backed vole is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Allen’s cotton rat weighting only 174 grams
- New Britain water rat raching a size of 29.2 cm (1′ 0″)
- Biting chinchilla mouse weighting only 82 grams
- Flat-headed vole with 6 babies per pregnancy
- Harrington’s rat weighting only 90 grams
- Nyika rock rat with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Drylands vesper mouse with 7 babies per pregnancy
- Tien Shan red-backed vole with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Oxymycterus hucucha weighting only 67 grams
- Greater mole-rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Southern red-backed vole
Those animals also give birth to 5 babies at once:
- Star-nosed mole
- Long-tailed pocket mouse
- Mountain weasel
- Daurian ground squirrel
- Black rat
- Douglas squirrel
- Lesser hairy-footed dunnart
- Yellow ground squirrel
- Small vesper mouse
- Uinta ground squirrel
Animals that get as old as a Southern red-backed vole
Other animals that usually reach the age of 1.67 years:
- North American least shrew with 1.75 years
- Dusky antechinus with 2 years
- Swamp antechinus with 2 years
- Mediterranean water shrew with 2 years
- Common shrew with 2 years
- Trowbridge’s shrew with 1.5 years
- Atlantic bamboo rat with 1.58 years
- Malabar spiny dormouse with 1.67 years
- Eurasian pygmy shrew with 2 years
- Brush mouse with 1.5 years
Animals with the same weight as a Southern red-backed vole
What other animals weight around 19 grams (0.04 lbs)?
- Northern short-tailed shrew weighting 18 grams
- Monte gerbil mouse weighting 18 grams
- Marinkelle’s sword-nosed bat weighting 17 grams
- Chinese mole shrew weighting 20 grams
- Morgan’s gerbil mouse weighting 16 grams
- Lesser long-nosed bat weighting 22 grams
- Sierra Leone free-tailed bat weighting 16 grams
- Ethiopian striped mouse weighting 18 grams
- Meadow jumping mouse weighting 18 grams
- Brukkaros pygmy rock mouse weighting 20 grams
Animals with the same size as a Southern red-backed vole
Also reaching around 10.1 cm (0′ 4″) in size do these animals:
- Greenish naked-backed fruit bat gets as big as 8.9 cm (0′ 4″)
- Mountain tube-nosed fruit bat gets as big as 8.6 cm (0′ 4″)
- Long-tailed vole gets as big as 11.9 cm (0′ 5″)
- Narrow-nosed harvest mouse gets as big as 8.7 cm (0′ 4″)
- Hispid pocket mouse gets as big as 10.5 cm (0′ 5″)
- Habbema dasyure gets as big as 11 cm (0′ 5″)
- Sulawesi rousette gets as big as 10.4 cm (0′ 5″)
- Great fruit-eating bat gets as big as 9.5 cm (0′ 4″)
- Greater forest shrew gets as big as 8.3 cm (0′ 4″)
- Sculptor squirrel gets as big as 12 cm (0′ 5″)