How many baby Spix’s yellow-toothed cavys are in a litter?
A Spix’s yellow-toothed cavy (Galea spixii) usually gives birth to around 2 babies.With 6 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 12 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 50 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 33 grams (0.07 lbs) and measure 4.6 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Caviidae family (genus: Galea). An adult Spix’s yellow-toothed cavy grows up to a size of 12 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.
Spix’s yellow-toothed cavy (Galea spixii) is a rodent, a cavy species from South America. It is found in Bolivia east of the Andes and much of south central to northeastern Brazil. The species is found in open savanna and semiarid habitats, such as the Cerrado and Caatinga of Brazil. Its karyotype is 2n = 64 and FN = 118.Galea spixii and G. musteloides are similar and may actually be the same species. G. spixii tolerates a wide range of environmental changes, though they need open habitats. It is the most stable species within the Galea group because it is extremely abundant throughout its range.Gestation is about fifty days. Litters size ranges from one to five, with an average of three. They have hair and open eyes at birth. Maturation of the two sexes takes differently long: female G. spixii have an open vagina when they are approximately eighty days old while the testicular descent is completed in male G. spixii at around one hundred thirty-five days old. Males and females in this species are aggressive to each other. Paternal care is rarely remarkable. When females go into estrus aggressiveness increases. On the other hand, when male approaches females in order to mate, it competes aggressively with other males. A study done in Brazil reported that nine male cavies were put to death to experiment their sperm recovery by soaking or injecting their sperm into a liquid that contained a chemical buffer. Unfortunately, there were no distinctive results between either soaking or injecting.
Other animals of the family Caviidae
Spix’s yellow-toothed cavy is a member of the Caviidae, as are these animals:
- Southern mountain cavy with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Brazilian yellow-toothed cavy weighting only 450 grams
- Shiny guinea pig with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Patagonian mara with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Capybara with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Chacoan mara with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Andean mountain cavy with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Greater guinea pig weighting only 460 grams
- Montane guinea pig with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Common yellow-toothed cavy with 2 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Spix’s yellow-toothed cavy
Those animals also give birth to 2 babies at once:
- Highland tuco-tuco
- Amami rabbit
- Red-handed tamarin
- Buffy-headed marmoset
- Zempoaltepec
- Wolverine
- Pouched gerbil
- Phillips’s kangaroo rat
- North African elephant shrew
- Savi’s pipistrelle
Animals that get as old as a Spix’s yellow-toothed cavy
Other animals that usually reach the age of 4.58 years:
- Evening bat with 5 years
- Uinta ground squirrel with 5 years
- Saharan striped polecat with 5 years
- Rufous horseshoe bat with 5 years
- Peters’s climbing rat with 5.33 years
- Mountain pocket gopher with 5 years
- Eurasian harvest mouse with 5 years
- Southern brown bandicoot with 3.75 years
- Northern pocket gopher with 3.75 years
- Sumichrast’s vesper rat with 5.17 years
Animals with the same weight as a Spix’s yellow-toothed cavy
What other animals weight around 361 grams (0.8 lbs)?
- Guyenne spiny rat weighting 315 grams
- Smoky pocket gopher weighting 302 grams
- Catamarca tuco-tuco weighting 316 grams
- Cuvier’s spiny rat weighting 339 grams
- Ornate flying fox weighting 335 grams
- Colburn’s tuco-tuco weighting 400 grams
- Japen rat weighting 380 grams
- Highland tuco-tuco weighting 327 grams
- Guyenne spiny rat weighting 314 grams
- Namaqua dune mole-rat weighting 389 grams