How many baby Western red-backed voles are in a litter?
A Western red-backed vole (Myodes californicus) usually gives birth to around 3 babies.With 3 litters per year, that sums up to a yearly offspring of 9 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 18 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 4 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 6 cm (0′ 3″). They are a member of the Cricetidae family (genus: Myodes). An adult Western red-backed vole grows up to a size of 9.8 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 red-backed vole (Myodes californicus) is a species of vole in the family Cricetidae. It is found in California and Oregon in the United States and lives mainly in coniferous forest. The body color is chestnut brown, or brown mixed with a considerable quantity of black hair gradually lightening on the sides and grading into a buffy-gray belly, with an indistinct reddish stripe on the back and a bicolored tail about half as long as the head and body.
Other animals of the family Cricetidae
Western red-backed vole is a member of the Cricetidae, as are these animals:
- Abrothrix jelskii weighting only 34 grams
- Euryoryzomys russatus weighting only 60 grams
- Southern big-eared mouse with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Middendorf’s vole with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Northwestern deer mouse with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Hylaeamys laticeps weighting only 49 grams
- Blackish grass mouse weighting only 19 grams
- Montane grass mouse raching a size of 7.5 cm (0′ 3″)
- Altiplano grass mouse weighting only 20 grams
- Handleyomys fuscatus weighting only 49 grams
Animals that share a litter size with Western red-backed vole
Those animals also give birth to 3 babies at once:
- Brown palm civet
- Indian long-eared hedgehog
- Lesser gray-brown musk shrew
- Atlantic Forest climbing mouse
- Rock pocket mouse
- Kashmir flying squirrel
- Slender harvest mouse
- Southern short-tailed shrew
- Kashmir flying squirrel
- Western chestnut mouse
Animals with the same weight as a Western red-backed vole
What other animals weight around 18 grams (0.04 lbs)?
- Ipanema bat weighting 18 grams
- Black-capped fruit bat weighting 17 grams
- Wilson’s spiny mouse weighting 18 grams
- Sumichrast’s harvest mouse weighting 19 grams
- Pygmy fruit bat weighting 15 grams
- Meadow jumping mouse weighting 18 grams
- Eligmodontia typus weighting 17 grams
- Brown fruit-eating bat weighting 19 grams
- Blackish grass mouse weighting 19 grams
- Schultz’s round-eared bat weighting 17 grams
Animals with the same size as a Western red-backed vole
Also reaching around 9.8 cm (0′ 4″) in size do these animals:
- Wandering small-eared shrew gets as big as 7.9 cm (0′ 4″)
- Canyon mouse gets as big as 8.2 cm (0′ 4″)
- Black-tailed dasyure gets as big as 10.8 cm (0′ 5″)
- Woodland vole gets as big as 9.9 cm (0′ 4″)
- Red tree vole gets as big as 10.3 cm (0′ 5″)
- White-tipped Oldfield mouse gets as big as 11.4 cm (0′ 5″)
- Djoongari gets as big as 10.6 cm (0′ 5″)
- Wagner’s gerbil gets as big as 8.3 cm (0′ 4″)
- Bailey’s pocket mouse gets as big as 9.4 cm (0′ 4″)
- Northern red-backed vole gets as big as 10.9 cm (0′ 5″)