10-05-2024, 07:42 PM
(10-05-2024, 07:20 PM)Lynyrd Skynyrd Wrote: Except the offspring nutria might also be breeding within that first year. He calculated for a single female when there might be 20 giving birth.
There might be 20, 200 or 2000.
The opening post said "each female can have up to 200 offspring each year".
The article itself is more vague, stating only "that nutria can produce up to 200 offspring annually and consume up to 25% of their body weight daily", which appears to imply they are talking about each animal.
Curiously, the original SFGate article the article from the OP uses says "Nutria reproduce at a prolific rate, giving birth to as many as 39 offspring in a little over a year."
If we consider all the possible added nutria, then we have one female giving birth to 39, but of those 39, if we consider the first 13 are able to have children after 3 months, then we can add 13 x 13 after 3 months + approximately 4 months gestation, which means 169 new offspring, that, added to the original 13 and another their mother had again then we get 195.
I suppose that's a way of making the news a little more impressive.
