How many baby Sowerby’s beaked whales are in a litter?
A Sowerby’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon bidens) usually gives birth to around 1 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 365 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 2 grams (0 lbs) and measure 1.5 cm (0′ 1″). They are a member of the Ziphiidae family (genus: Mesoplodon). An adult Sowerby’s beaked whale grows up to a size of 5.03 meter (16′ 7″).
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.
Sowerby’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon bidens), also known as the North Atlantic or North Sea beaked whale, is a species of toothed whale. It was the first mesoplodont whale to be described. James Sowerby, an English naturalist and artist, first described the species in 1804 from a skull obtained from a male that had stranded in the Moray Firth, Scotland, in 1800. He named it bidens, which derives from the two teeth present in the jaw, now known to be a very common feature among the genus.
Other animals of the family Ziphiidae
Sowerby’s beaked whale is a member of the Ziphiidae, as are these animals:
- Hubbs’ beaked whale weighting around 3400 kilograms (7495.71 lbs)
- Cuvier’s beaked whale with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Gray’s beaked whale weighting around 2900 kilograms (6393.4 lbs)
- Andrews’ beaked whale weighting around 2600 kilograms (5732.01 lbs)
- Strap-toothed whale weighting around 1500 kilograms (3306.93 lbs)
- True’s beaked whale weighting around 2100 kilograms (4629.7 lbs)
- Southern bottlenose whale weighting around 3000 kilograms (6613.86 lbs)
- Ginkgo-toothed beaked whale weighting around 1500 kilograms (3306.93 lbs)
- Pygmy beaked whale raching a size of 3.72 meter (12′ 3″)
- Northern bottlenose whale with 1 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Sowerby’s beaked whale
Those animals also give birth to 1 babies at once:
- Antillean fruit-eating bat
- Gould’s long-eared bat
- Dibatag
- Soemmerring’s gazelle
- Tasmanian pademelon
- Philippine pygmy squirrel
- Moor macaque
- Van Gelder’s bat
- Long-finned pilot whale
- Usambara shrew
Animals with the same weight as a Sowerby’s beaked whale
What other animals weight around 3400 kg (7495.71 lbs)?
- Steller’s sea cow usually reaching 4000 kgs (8818.48 lbs)
- Northern bottlenose whale usually reaching 3391.68 kgs (7477.37 lbs)
- Southern bottlenose whale usually reaching 3000 kgs (6613.86 lbs)
- Hubbs’ beaked whale usually reaching 3400 kgs (7495.71 lbs)
- African bush elephant usually reaching 3882.27 kgs (8558.93 lbs)
- Gray’s beaked whale usually reaching 2900 kgs (6393.4 lbs)
- Asian elephant usually reaching 3294.9 kgs (7264 lbs)
Animals with the same size as a Sowerby’s beaked whale
Also reaching around 5.03 meter (16′ 7″) in size do these animals:
- Hubbs’ beaked whale gets as big as 5.4 meter (17′ 9″)
- True’s beaked whale gets as big as 5.18 meter (17′ 0″)
- Blainville’s beaked whale gets as big as 4.59 meter (15′ 1″)
- Ginkgo-toothed beaked whale gets as big as 4.88 meter (16′ 1″)
- Narwhal gets as big as 5.1 meter (16′ 9″)
- Beluga whale gets as big as 4.25 meter (14′ 0″)
- Long-finned pilot whale gets as big as 5.69 meter (18′ 9″)
- Common minke whale gets as big as 5.53 meter (18′ 2″)
- Northern giraffe gets as big as 4.18 meter (13′ 9″)
- Andrews’ beaked whale gets as big as 4.26 meter (14′ 0″)