What is the maximal age a Common degu reaches?
An adult Common degu (Octodon degus) usually gets as old as 7.08 years.
Common degus are around 90 days in the womb of their mother. When born, they weight 14 grams (0.03 lbs) and measure 5.1 cm (0′ 3″). As a member of the Octodontidae family (genus: Octodon), a Common degu caries out around 5 little ones per pregnancy, which happens around 2 times a year. Fully grown, they reach a bodylength of 28 cm (1′ 0″).
As a reference: Usually, humans get as old as 100 years, with the average being around 75 years. After being carried in the belly of their mother for 280 days (40 weeks), they grow to an average size of 1.65m (5′ 5″) and weight in at 62 kg (137 lbs), which is obviously highly individual.
The common degu (Octodon degus; ), or, historically, the degu, is a small hystricomorpha rodent endemic to the Chilean matorral ecoregion of central Chile. The name degu on its own indicates either the entire genus Octodon or, more commonly, just the common degu. Common degus belong to the parvorder Caviomorpha of the infraorder Hystricognathi, along with the chinchilla and guinea pig. The word degu comes from the indigenous language of Chile, Mapudungun, and the word dewü, meaning ‘mouse’ or ‘rat’.The animal may be kept as a pocket pet, except there are prohibitions on their ownership in some territories. As a pet, the animal is larger than a golden hamster but smaller than a fancy rat.
Animals of the same family as a Common degu
Not really brothers and sisters, but from the same biological family (Octodontidae):
- Moon-toothed degu bringing the scale to 200 grams
- Mountain degu becoming 7.33 years old
- Chilean rock rat with 3 babies per pregnancy
- Mountain viscacha rat bringing the scale to 124 grams
- Plains viscacha rat bringing the scale to 86 grams
- Coruro becoming 6 years old
- Bridges’s degu bringing the scale to 162 grams
- Sage’s rock rat bringing the scale to 96 grams
Animals that reach the same age as Common degu
With an average age of 7.08 years, Common degu are in good companionship of the following animals:
- San Diego pocket mouse usually reaching 8.25 years
- Bare-tailed woolly opossum usually reaching 6.33 years
- Nathusius’s pipistrelle usually reaching 8 years
- Black dorcopsis usually reaching 8 years
- Gray dorcopsis usually reaching 8 years
- Red-tailed chipmunk usually reaching 8 years
- Scaly-tailed possum usually reaching 6 years
- Lesser short-nosed fruit bat usually reaching 8 years
- Black-tailed jackrabbit usually reaching 6.75 years
- Arctic hare usually reaching 7 years
Animals with the same number of babies Common degu
The same number of babies at once (5) are born by:
- Black rat
- Hispid cotton rat
- Gray-bellied pygmy mouse
- Northern gracile opossum
- Small vesper mouse
- Winter white dwarf hamster
- Alston’s cotton rat
- Social vole
- Wongai ningaui
- Soft-furred rat
Weighting as much as Common degu
A fully grown Common degu reaches around 203 grams (0.45 lbs). So do these animals:
- Pallid Atlantic tree-rat with 215 grams
- Ochre mole-rat with 200 grams
- Lundomys with 238 grams
- Little ground squirrel with 174 grams
- Mindanao hairy-tailed rat with 186 grams
- Palawan treeshrew with 168 grams
- Long-tailed spiny rat with 205 grams
- Black-striped squirrel with 209 grams
- Holochilus chacarius with 204 grams
- Earless water rat with 168 grams
Animals as big as a Common degu
Those animals grow as big as a Common degu:
- Large Luzon forest rat with 24 cm (0′ 10″)
- Arctic ground squirrel with 27.9 cm (0′ 11″)
- Forest giant squirrel with 29.1 cm (1′ 0″)
- Ilin Island cloudrunner with 25.3 cm (0′ 10″)
- Black-shouldered opossum with 23.4 cm (0′ 10″)
- Utah prairie dog with 28.8 cm (1′ 0″)
- Javan mongoose with 27.5 cm (0′ 11″)
- Mountain weasel with 24.4 cm (0′ 10″)
- Long-tailed weasel with 23 cm (0′ 10″)
- Conover’s tuco-tuco with 25.8 cm (0′ 11″)