Mus minutoides
Silhouette: Madeleine Price Ball · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The African pygmy mouse (Mus minutoides) is one of the smallest rodents. It is widespread within sub-Saharan Africa, and is kept as a pet in other parts of the world. Like the common and widely introduced European house mouse, it is a member of the enormous superfamily Muroidea, which includes over 1000 different species. It forms a super- species complex with Mus musculoides.
Grey to brick-red overall, it is pale on the underside and has small but prominent triangular ears. Adult body length averages 50 mm (2.0 in) long, with a 40 mm (1.6 in) tail. Average adults body weight is 5 g (0.18 oz).
The African pygmy mouse reaches breeding age at about 6 to 8 weeks. Pregnancy lasts for around 20 days and the litter of about three young is born blind and hairless. Average weight of puppies at birth is 0.8 g (0.028 oz) Their eyes open after 2 weeks, and weaning is complete after 3 weeks. The lifespan is about 2 years, although individual specimens have been reported to live over 4 years in captivity.
The African pygmy mouse has a number of unique traits. It stacks pebbles in front of its burrow. Overnight, the pebbles gather dew and in the morning, the pygmy mouse drinks the dew on the pebbles. After that, it retires to its den. Its method of sex determination has also been found to differ from most mammals in that rearrangements of the X chromosome have led to many XY individuals actually being female.
The species lives in colonies or in pairs in grass close to water and is an excellent climber. Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Garden Route National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cape Town | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Prague Zoo | 🇨🇿 Czechia | |
| 2 | Bronx Zoo | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 3 | Chester Zoo | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 4 | Berlin Zoological Garden | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 5 | Wrocław Zoological Garden | 🇵🇱 Poland | |
| 6 | Schönbrunn Zoo | 🇦🇹 Austria | |
| 7 | Budapest Zoo & Botanical Garden | 🇭🇺 Hungary | |
| 8 | Ueno Zoo | 🇯🇵 Japan | |
| 9 | Ueno Zoological Gardens (West Garden) | 🇯🇵 Japan | |
| 10 | Africarium | 🇵🇱 Poland | |
| 11 | Aquarium Berlin | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 12 | Rákosův pavilon | 🇨🇿 Czechia | |
| 13 | Velemlokárium | 🇨🇿 Czechia | |
| 14 | terrarium ogrodu zoologicznego we Wrocławiu | 🇵🇱 Poland |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Pygmy Mouse sighting in Garden Route National Park on a given day, based on 5 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 31st most-seen of the 35 mammals we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
March, June and November
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Pygmy Mouse in Garden Route National Park on a given day, against under 5% in April–May, July–October and December–February, the lowest months.
Between 8 and 11 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Pygmy Mouse sightings with a recorded time, and about 7 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Garden Route National Park, in our data
Garden Route National Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Pygmy Mouse sightings: under 5% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same family: Muridae
The closest relatives of the Pygmy Mouse that you can see in Garden Route National Park (family Muridae, Old World Mice and Rats) are Cape Four-striped Grass Mouse (about 10%) and vlei rat (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Pygmy Mouse is recorded against all the mammals logged in Garden Route National Park (5 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
