Reproduction
Unlike their cousins, the Allegheny woodrat are not a prolific breeders. The breeding season is variable across their range, but is broadly between March and October, and they average two or three litters per year. Gestation lasts 30 to 36 days, and results in the birth of a litter of one to four young (typically two)
The young are born hairless and blind, weighing 15 to 17 grams (0.5 to 0.6 oz). They become fully furred at two weeks, and open their eyes at three weeks. They live with their mother in a nest composed of grass, bark, and similar materials, often located in relatively inaccessible crevices or ledges.
Allegheny woodrats become sexually mature at three to four months of age, and, in the wild, have been known to live up to 58 months.
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Famous quotes containing the word reproduction:
“Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it “the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.” The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of “Artist.””
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
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—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“Although Samuel had a depraved imagination—perhaps even because of this—love, for him, was less a matter of the senses than of the intellect. It was, above all, admiration and appetite for beauty; he considered reproduction a flaw of love, and pregnancy a form of insanity. He wrote on one occasion: “Angels are hermaphrodite and sterile.””
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)