What is the maximal age a Least weasel reaches?
An adult Least weasel (Mustela nivalis) usually gets as old as 10 years.
Least weasels are around 36 days in the womb of their mother. When born, they weight 2 grams (0 lbs) and measure 5 cm (0′ 2″). As a member of the Mustelidae family (genus: Mustela), a Least weasel caries out around 5 little ones per pregnancy, which happens around 1 times a year. Fully grown, they reach a bodylength of 18.9 cm (0′ 8″).
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 least weasel (Mustela nivalis), little weasel, common weasel, or simply weasel in the UK and much of the world, is the smallest member of the genus Mustela, family Mustelidae and order Carnivora. It is native to Eurasia, North America and North Africa, and has been introduced to New Zealand, Malta, Crete, Bermuda, Madeira Island, the Azores, the Canary Islands, São Tomé, the Falkland Islands, Argentina and Chile. It is classified as least concern by the IUCN, due to its wide distribution and large population throughout the Northern Hemisphere.Least weasels from various parts of its range vary greatly in size. The body is slender and elongated, the legs and tail are relatively short. The colour varies geographically, as does the pelage type and length of tail. The dorsal surface, flanks, limbs and tail of the animal are usually some shade of brown while the underparts are white. The line delineating the boundary between the two colours is usually straight. At high altitudes and in the northern part of its range, the coat becomes pure white in winter. Eighteen subspecies are recognised.Small rodents form the largest part of the least weasel’s diet, but it also kills and eats rabbits, other mammals, and occasionally birds, birds’ eggs, fish and frogs. Males mark their territories with olfactory signals and have exclusive home ranges which may intersect with or include several female ranges. Least weasels use pre-existing holes to sleep, store food and raise their young. Breeding takes place in the spring and summer, and there is a single litter of about six kits which are reared exclusively by the female. Due to its small size and fierce nature, the least weasel plays an important part in the mythology and legend of various cultures.
Animals of the same family as a Least weasel
Not really brothers and sisters, but from the same biological family (Mustelidae):
- Mountain weasel with 5 babies per pregnancy
- Smooth-coated otter becoming 15 years old
- Siberian weasel becoming 8.83 years old
- Malayan weasel with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Pygmy spotted skunk with 4 babies per pregnancy
- Tayra becoming 18 years old
- Marine otter with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Spotted-necked otter with 2 babies per pregnancy
- Japanese marten growing to a mass of 1 kgs (2.2 lbs)
- Hairy-nosed otter growing to a mass of 5.97 kgs (13.16 lbs)
Animals that reach the same age as Least weasel
With an average age of 10 years, Least weasel are in good companionship of the following animals:
- Southern tamandua usually reaching 9 years
- Oncilla usually reaching 10 years
- Short-tailed chinchilla usually reaching 10 years
- Taruca usually reaching 10.58 years
- Capybara usually reaching 12 years
- Nathusius’s pipistrelle usually reaching 8 years
- Spectral tarsier usually reaching 12 years
- Bushveld elephant shrew usually reaching 8.75 years
- Heterohyrax antineae usually reaching 12 years
- Black-tailed prairie dog usually reaching 8.5 years
Animals with the same number of babies Least weasel
The same number of babies at once (5) are born by:
- Eurasian harvest mouse
- Northern gracile opossum
- Golden-mantled ground squirrel
- Marbled polecat
- Lesser fat-tailed jerboa
- Social vole
- Mearns’s pouched mouse
- Sminthopsis laniger
- Oligoryzomys flavescens
- Soft-furred rat
Weighting as much as Least weasel
A fully grown Least weasel reaches around 79 grams (0.17 lbs). So do these animals:
- Short-tailed hopping mouse with 89 grams
- Striped Atlantic Forest rat with 67 grams
- Greater nectar bat with 72 grams
- Rhoads’s Oldfield mouse with 77 grams
- Hero shrew with 91 grams
- Gray-footed chipmunk with 70 grams
- Bolivian big-eared mouse with 71 grams
- Cape gerbil with 92 grams
- Small Japanese mole with 65 grams
- Oryzomys couesi with 69 grams
Animals as big as a Least weasel
Those animals grow as big as a Least weasel:
- Maxomys baeodon with 16.7 cm (0′ 7″)
- Grey-bellied squirrel with 21.1 cm (0′ 9″)
- Sulawesi stripe-faced fruit bat with 16.5 cm (0′ 7″)
- Kowari with 15.8 cm (0′ 7″)
- Black rat with 19.4 cm (0′ 8″)
- Townsend’s pocket gopher with 18.4 cm (0′ 8″)
- White-eared cotton rat with 15.7 cm (0′ 7″)
- Mountain treeshrew with 18.5 cm (0′ 8″)
- Straw-coloured fruit bat with 18.2 cm (0′ 8″)
- Big-eared climbing rat with 15.2 cm (0′ 6″)