How many baby Stephens’s kangaroo rats are in a litter?
A Stephens’s kangaroo rat (Dipodomys stephensi) usually gives birth to around 2 babies.With 2 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 4 babies.
Upon birth, they weight 4 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 4 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Heteromyidae family (genus: Dipodomys). An adult Stephens’s kangaroo rat grows up to a size of 11.6 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.
Stephens’s kangaroo rat (Dipodomys stephensi) is a species of rodent in the family Heteromyidae. It is endemic to the Southern California region of the United States, primarily in western Riverside County. The species is named after American zoologist Frank Stephens (1849–1937).The natural habitat of Stephens’s kangaroo rat is sparsely vegetated temperate grassland. This habitat has been destroyed or modified for agriculture throughout the species’ range; as a result, Stephens’s kangaroo rat is listed as an endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It occurs sympatrically with the agile kangaroo rat, but tends to prefer few shrubs and gravelly soils to the agile’s preference for denser shrubs.
Other animals of the family Heteromyidae
Stephens’s kangaroo rat is a member of the Heteromyidae, as are these animals:
- Dark kangaroo mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Agile kangaroo rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Gaumer’s spiny pocket mouse with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Panamanian spiny pocket mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Great Basin pocket mouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Painted spiny pocket mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Fresno kangaroo rat with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Gulf Coast kangaroo rat with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Merriam’s pocket mouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Lined pocket mouse weighting only 23 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Stephens’s kangaroo rat
Those animals also give birth to 2 babies at once:
- African wading rat
- Cactus mouse
- Myosorex varius
- Guaira spiny rat
- Peters’s musk shrew
- Banded linsang
- Epixerus
- Pichi
- Short-tailed gymnure
- Musky rat-kangaroo
Animals with the same weight as a Stephens’s kangaroo rat
What other animals weight around 68 grams (0.15 lbs)?
- Whitehead’s spiny rat weighting 57 grams
- Slender squirrel weighting 74 grams
- Coxing’s white-bellied rat weighting 80 grams
- Madagascan rousette weighting 65 grams
- Moncton’s mosaic-tailed rat weighting 80 grams
- Alston’s cotton rat weighting 55 grams
- Mamore arboreal rice rat weighting 62 grams
- Pyrenean desman weighting 60 grams
- Long-tailed mountain rat weighting 79 grams
- Desmarest’s spiny pocket mouse weighting 73 grams
Animals with the same size as a Stephens’s kangaroo rat
Also reaching around 11.6 cm (0′ 5″) in size do these animals:
- Forest Oldfield mouse gets as big as 10.6 cm (0′ 5″)
- Colorado chipmunk gets as big as 12.2 cm (0′ 5″)
- Antechinus wilhelmina gets as big as 10.6 cm (0′ 5″)
- Juliana’s golden mole gets as big as 10 cm (0′ 4″)
- Luzon montane forest mouse gets as big as 10.9 cm (0′ 5″)
- Mindanao montane forest mouse gets as big as 10.9 cm (0′ 5″)
- One-striped opossum gets as big as 13.7 cm (0′ 6″)
- Shining thicket rat gets as big as 11.1 cm (0′ 5″)
- Aegialomys galapagoensis gets as big as 11.2 cm (0′ 5″)
- Shrew gymnure gets as big as 11.7 cm (0′ 5″)