How many baby Xerus erythropuss are in a litter?
A Xerus erythropus (Xerus erythropus) usually gives birth to around 3 babies.
Each of those little ones spend around 23 days as a fetus before they are released into the wild. Upon birth, they weight 5 grams (0.01 lbs) and measure 11.1 cm (0′ 5″). They are a member of the Sciuridae family (genus: Xerus). An adult Xerus erythropus grows up to a size of 31.2 cm (1′ 1″).
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.
Xerus erythropus (striped ground squirrel) is a species of squirrel native to Africa. It was first described by Geoffroy in 1803, but the original publication may be unavailable, so that the binomial authority is today more often cited as “Desmarest, 1817”. There are six subspecies. It is a moderately large ground squirrel with sandy-brown or dark-brown fur with a white lateral stripe and whitish underparts. Adults live alone or in pairs in a simple burrow with a central nest, foraging, mostly on the ground, for seeds, nuts and roots, and caching excess food under stones. This is a common species with a wide range and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as being of “least concern”.
Other animals of the family Sciuridae
Xerus erythropus is a member of the Sciuridae, as are these animals:
- Brazilian squirrel weighting only 177 grams
- Unstriped ground squirrel with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Groundhog with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Mentawai three-striped squirrel weighting only 241 grams
- Horse-tailed squirrel weighting only 358 grams
- Japanese squirrel weighting only 264 grams
- Selangor pygmy flying squirrel weighting only 30 grams
- Whiskered flying squirrel with 1 babies per pregnancy
- Daurian ground squirrel with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Forest giant squirrel with 1 babies per pregnancy
Animals that share a litter size with Xerus erythropus
Those animals also give birth to 3 babies at once:
- Pinyon mouse
- Fat mouse
- Long-nosed dasyure
- Red rock rat
- Andean mountain cavy
- Desert kangaroo rat
- Woodland thicket rat
- Mountain pocket gopher
- Juniper vole
- Stella wood mouse
Animals that get as old as a Xerus erythropus
Other animals that usually reach the age of 6 years:
- Long-tailed weasel with 7.08 years
- Cuban solenodon with 6.5 years
- Little free-tailed bat with 5 years
- Kowari with 7 years
- Tailless tenrec with 6.25 years
- Evening bat with 5 years
- American pika with 7 years
- Least chipmunk with 6.25 years
- Dark kangaroo mouse with 5.42 years
- Uinta ground squirrel with 5 years
Animals with the same weight as a Xerus erythropus
What other animals weight around 602 grams (1.33 lbs)?
- Dark spiny tree-rat weighting 627 grams
- Kashmir flying squirrel weighting 510 grams
- Grey-headed flying fox weighting 702 grams
- Black-footed tree-rat weighting 716 grams
- Lutrine opossum weighting 556 grams
- Golden lion tamarin weighting 593 grams
- Peters’s squirrel weighting 650 grams
- Goeldi’s marmoset weighting 558 grams
- Hispid pocket gopher weighting 499 grams
- Numbat weighting 517 grams
Animals with the same size as a Xerus erythropus
Also reaching around 31.2 cm (1′ 1″) in size do these animals:
- Back-striped weasel gets as big as 28.7 cm (1′ 0″)
- Podogymnura truei gets as big as 31.3 cm (1′ 1″)
- Muskrat gets as big as 27.7 cm (0′ 11″)
- New Britain water rat gets as big as 29.2 cm (1′ 0″)
- Short-tailed chinchilla gets as big as 30.5 cm (1′ 1″)
- Amazon bamboo rat gets as big as 28.5 cm (1′ 0″)
- Sunda slow loris gets as big as 30 cm (1′ 0″)
- New Guinean quoll gets as big as 26.9 cm (0′ 11″)
- Great flying fox gets as big as 27.9 cm (0′ 11″)
- Javan mongoose gets as big as 27.5 cm (0′ 11″)