How many baby Western jumping mouses are in a litter?
A Western jumping mouse (Zapus princeps) usually gives birth to around 5 babies.With 1 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 5 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 18 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 6.34 kg (13.99 lbs) and measure 11.1 cm (0′ 5″). They are a member of the Dipodidae family (genus: Zapus). An adult Western jumping mouse grows up to a size of 9.4 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 western jumping mouse (Zapus princeps), is a species of rodent in the family Dipodidae. It is found in Canada and the United States.Western jumping mice evolved during the Pleistocene, possibly from the fossil species Zapus burti, which is known from the late Blancan. Their closest relatives appear to be Pacific jumping mice, with which they can still interbreed to produce fertile offspring.
Other animals of the family Dipodidae
Western jumping mouse is a member of the Dipodidae, as are these animals:
- Meadow jumping mouse with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Altai birch mouse with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Bobrinski’s jerboa with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Lichtenstein’s jerboa with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Euphrates jerboa with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Pacific jumping mouse with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Southern birch mouse weighting only 11 grams
- Dwarf fat-tailed jerboa with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Baluchistan pygmy jerboa with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Lesser Egyptian jerboa with 3 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Western jumping mouse
Those animals also give birth to 5 babies at once:
- Fringe-tailed gerbil
- Sandhill dunnart
- Arctic hare
- Dusky slender opossum
- Zarudny’s rock shrew
- Woosnam’s broad-headed mouse
- Piebald shrew
- Edible dormouse
- Sminthopsis laniger
- Wongai ningaui
Animals with the same weight as a Western jumping mouse
What other animals weight around 27 grams (0.06 lbs)?
- Railer bat weighting 22 grams
- White-footed vole weighting 23 grams
- Agile gracile opossum weighting 22 grams
- Ratanaworabhan’s fruit bat weighting 32 grams
- Japanese mountain mole weighting 25 grams
- Tyler’s mouse opossum weighting 32 grams
- Western false pipistrelle weighting 23 grams
- Little desert pocket mouse weighting 23 grams
- Deroo’s mouse weighting 32 grams
- Yellow steppe lemming weighting 26 grams
Animals with the same size as a Western jumping mouse
Also reaching around 9.4 cm (0′ 4″) in size do these animals:
- Mole-like rice tenrec gets as big as 10.4 cm (0′ 5″)
- Northwestern deer mouse gets as big as 9.3 cm (0′ 4″)
- Forest dormouse gets as big as 10.5 cm (0′ 5″)
- Bailey’s pocket mouse gets as big as 9.4 cm (0′ 4″)
- Honey possum gets as big as 7.7 cm (0′ 4″)
- Southern grasshopper mouse gets as big as 9.4 cm (0′ 4″)
- North African gerbil gets as big as 9 cm (0′ 4″)
- Jamaican fruit bat gets as big as 7.8 cm (0′ 4″)
- Red tree vole gets as big as 10.3 cm (0′ 5″)
- Long-eared flying mouse gets as big as 8.7 cm (0′ 4″)