It is hard to guess what a Brown rat weights. But we have the answer:
An adult Brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) on average weights 282 grams (0.62 lbs).
The Brown rat is from the family Muridae (genus: Rattus). It is usually born with about 5 grams (0.01 lbs). When reaching adult age, they grow up to 18.2 cm (0′ 8″). On average, Brown rats can have babies 3 times per year with a litter size of 8.
As a reference: An average human weights in at 62 kg (137 lbs) and reaches an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″). Humans spend 280 days (40 weeks) in the womb of their mother and reach around 75 years of age.
The brown rat (Rattus norvegicus), also known as the common rat, street rat, sewer rat, Hanover rat, Norway rat, Norwegian rat, Parisian rat, or wharf rat is one of the best known and most common rats.One of the largest muroids, it is a brown or grey rodent with a head and body length of up to 28 cm (11 in) long, and a tail slightly shorter than that. It weighs between 140 and 500 g (5 and 17 3⁄4 oz). Thought to have originated in northern China, this rodent has now spread to all continents except Antarctica, and is the dominant rat in Europe and much of North America, making it, by at least this particular definition, the most successful mammal on the planet alongside humans. With rare exceptions, the brown rat lives wherever humans live, particularly in urban areas.Selective breeding of the brown rat has produced the fancy rat as a pet, as well as the laboratory rat – rats used as model organisms in biological research.
Animals of the same family as a Brown rat
We found other animals of the Muridae family:
- Woosnam’s broad-headed mouse with a weight of 54 grams
- Daphne’s Oldfield mouse with a weight of 77 grams
- Rusty-bellied brush-furred rat with a weight of 62 grams
- Isabel naked-tailed rat with a size of 27 cm (0′ 11″)
- Northern grass mouse with a weight of 44 grams
- San Martín Island woodrat with a weight of 240 grams
- Distinguished Oldfield mouse with a weight of 77 grams
- Hairy-eared cerrado mouse with a weight of 24 grams
- Molina’s grass mouse with a weight of 33 grams
- Euryoryzomys macconnelli with a weight of 62 grams
Animals with the same weight as a Brown rat
As a comparison, here are some other animals that weight as much as the Rattus norvegicus:
- Minca spiny rat bringing 284 grams to the scale
- White-toothed tuco-tuco bringing 244 grams to the scale
- Black-shouldered opossum bringing 258 grams to the scale
- Townsend’s pocket gopher bringing 263 grams to the scale
- Transbaikal zokor bringing 259 grams to the scale
- Drab Atlantic tree-rat bringing 260 grams to the scale
- Silky anteater bringing 259 grams to the scale
- Barbary ground squirrel bringing 251 grams to the scale
- Common marmoset bringing 291 grams to the scale
- Shiny guinea pig bringing 283 grams to the scale
Animals with the same litter size as a Brown rat
Here is a list of animals that have the same number of babies per litter (8) as a Brown rat: