How many baby Western harvest mouses are in a litter?
A Western harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys megalotis) usually gives birth to around 4 babies.With 4 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 16 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 23 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 1 grams (0 lbs) and measure 4.2 cm (0′ 2″). They are a member of the Muridae family (genus: Reithrodontomys). An adult Western harvest mouse grows up to a size of 6.9 cm (0′ 3″).
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 western harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys megalotis) is a small neotomine mouse native to most of the western United States. Many authorities consider the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse to be a subspecies, but the two are now usually treated separately.
Other animals of the family Muridae
Western harvest mouse is a member of the Muridae, as are these animals:
- Banana climbing mouse with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Red spiny rat with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Geoxus valdivianus with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Great Key Island giant rat raching a size of 27.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- Western mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Buxton’s jird with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Ghana rufous-nosed rat weighting only 85 grams
- Darwin’s leaf-eared mouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Peruvian vesper mouse weighting only 20 grams
- Rwanda African mole-rat with 1 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Western harvest mouse
Those animals also give birth to 4 babies at once:
- San Joaquin pocket mouse
- New England cottontail
- Western pygmy possum
- Pacific shrew
- California pocket mouse
- European mink
- Sonoma chipmunk
- Visayan warty pig
- Black-tailed prairie dog
- Malayan weasel
Animals that get as old as a Western harvest mouse
Other animals that usually reach the age of 1.5 years:
- Long-tailed planigale with 1.25 years
- Southern marsupial mole with 1.5 years
- North American least shrew with 1.75 years
- Arctic shrew with 1.5 years
- Himalayan mole with 1.5 years
- Aegialomys galapagoensis with 1.67 years
- Texas mouse with 1.5 years
- American water shrew with 1.5 years
- Smoky shrew with 1.25 years
- Ornate shrew with 1.42 years
Animals with the same weight as a Western harvest mouse
What other animals weight around 10 grams (0.02 lbs)?
- Luzon shrew weighting 10 grams
- Tricolored big-eared bat weighting 8 grams
- Variegated butterfly bat weighting 11 grams
- Micronycteris brachyotis weighting 10 grams
- Black-gilded pipistrelle weighting 10 grams
- Variegated butterfly bat weighting 11 grams
- Orange leaf-nosed bat weighting 8 grams
- Golden bat weighting 12 grams
- Long-legged myotis weighting 8 grams
- Arizona pocket mouse weighting 11 grams
Animals with the same size as a Western harvest mouse
Also reaching around 6.9 cm (0′ 3″) in size do these animals:
- Southern red-sided opossum gets as big as 7.2 cm (0′ 3″)
- Temminck’s mouse gets as big as 6.1 cm (0′ 3″)
- Moss-forest blossom bat gets as big as 6.9 cm (0′ 3″)
- Paratriaenops furculus gets as big as 6.7 cm (0′ 3″)
- New Guinean planigale gets as big as 7.7 cm (0′ 4″)
- American water shrew gets as big as 7.4 cm (0′ 3″)
- Alpine shrew gets as big as 6.7 cm (0′ 3″)
- Northern ghost bat gets as big as 7 cm (0′ 3″)
- Large-eared gray shrew gets as big as 6.6 cm (0′ 3″)
- Bates’s shrew gets as big as 6.8 cm (0′ 3″)