Reproduction
The breeding season is from late June to mid August, and results in only one litter per year. Males are non-territorial, and may visit the territories of several nearby females to mate, becoming aggressive to any other males they encounter. The male attracts a female by squeaking, then conducts a circular courtship dance before mounting her.
Gestation lasts from 20–31 days, and results in the birth of anything up to eleven young, although four or five is more typical. The young are initially blind and helpless, and weigh around 2 to 3 grams (0.071 to 0.11 oz). They develop their fur by 16 days, and open their eyes after around 3 weeks. They begin to leave the nest after around 30 days, and are sexually mature by the time they complete their second hibernation. Compared with similarly sized mammals, they have an unusually long lifespan, and have been reported to live up to twelve years in the wild.
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Famous quotes containing the word reproduction:
“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)
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—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
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—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)