It is hard to guess what a Gray-tailed vole weights. But we have the answer:
An adult Gray-tailed vole (Microtus canicaudus) on average weights 29 grams (0.06 lbs).
The Gray-tailed vole is from the family Muridae (genus: Microtus). It is usually born with about 2 grams (0 lbs). When reaching adult age, they grow up to 11 cm (0′ 5″). Usually, Gray-tailed voles have 4 babies per litter.
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 gray-tailed vole (Microtus canicaudus) also known as the gray-tailed meadow vole or gray-tailed meadow mouse, is a rodent in the genus Microtus (small-eared “meadow voles”) of the family Cricetidae. Voles are small mammals, and this species lies roughly in the middle of their size range. First collected in 1895, it is endemic to the Willamette Valley, Oregon, and Clark County, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Historically, they were found in the prairie areas of the Valley and, though many of these areas have been converted for agricultural purposes, these animals remain common. For reasons that remain unclear, vole population densities in any area may fluctuate widely from season to season and year to year. They are preyed upon by owls, hawks, and carnivorous mammals, and their parasites include fleas and ticks. These voles build burrows and complex tunnel networks, which they sometimes share with other burrowing animals. Relatively little is known about their behavior in the wild, because they are elusive and unlikely to enter traps.
Animals of the same family as a Gray-tailed vole
We found other animals of the Muridae family:
- Mottled-tailed shrew mouse with a weight of 18 grams
- Mearns’s grasshopper mouse with a weight of 30 grams
- Southern African vlei rat with a weight of 114 grams
- Eastern small-toothed rat with a weight of 357 grams
- Tropical vlei rat with 1 babies per litter
- Bank vole with a weight of 20 grams
- Edward’s swamp rat with a weight of 63 grams
- Eastern shrew mouse with a weight of 16 grams
- Gray spiny mouse with a size of 8.5 cm (0′ 4″)
- Alpine woolly rat bringing 2.04 kilos (4.5 lbs) to the scale
Animals with the same weight as a Gray-tailed vole
As a comparison, here are some other animals that weight as much as the Microtus canicaudus:
- Ash-grey mouse bringing 30 grams to the scale
- Gray-bellied pencil-tailed tree mouse bringing 28 grams to the scale
- California red tree mouse bringing 32 grams to the scale
- Tonatia silvicola bringing 32 grams to the scale
- Puno grass mouse bringing 30 grams to the scale
- Woodford’s fruit bat bringing 30 grams to the scale
- Fire-bellied brush-furred rat bringing 32 grams to the scale
- Graphiurus hueti bringing 30 grams to the scale
- Hoary bat bringing 27 grams to the scale
- Lesser short-nosed fruit bat bringing 33 grams to the scale
Animals with the same size as a Gray-tailed vole
Not that size really matters, but it makes things comparable. So here are a couple of animals that are as big as Gray-tailed vole:
- Japanese shrew mole with a size of 9 cm (0′ 4″)
- Pteropus brunneus with a size of 11.7 cm (0′ 5″)
- Shrew gymnure with a size of 11.7 cm (0′ 5″)
- Geoffroy’s rousette with a size of 10.7 cm (0′ 5″)
- Northern gracile opossum with a size of 9.9 cm (0′ 4″)
- Bastard big-footed mouse with a size of 9 cm (0′ 4″)
- Chinese dormouse with a size of 9.1 cm (0′ 4″)
- Dusky hopping mouse with a size of 12 cm (0′ 5″)
- Least forest mouse with a size of 10.9 cm (0′ 5″)
- Dickey’s deer mouse with a size of 10 cm (0′ 4″)
Animals with the same litter size as a Gray-tailed vole
Here is a list of animals that have the same number of babies per litter (4) as a Gray-tailed vole: