Did you know the longest brooding period or 'pregnancy' of any known animal is a whopping four and a half years? If you think female African elephants have it tough with their 22-month gestation period, spare a thought for the deep-sea octopus Graneledone boreopacifica.
Graneledone boreopacifica: 4.5 years
The longest known period of pregnancy (brooding in this case) in the entire animal kingdom goes to one female deep-sea octopus that was observed hatching and brooding her eggs for a whopping 4.5 years. This is shocking as it's longer than most octopuses live.
The Patient Pachyderm
Elephants are the largest land mammals in the world, so it's perhaps not surprising that they have the longest pregnancy of any living mammal: African elephants are pregnant for an average of 22 months, whilst for Asian elephants it's 18 to 22 months.
Black Alpine Salamanders
Their pregnancies can last from two to three years, depending on the altitude at which the salamanders live. They typically bear two fully developed young.
Hippos are only pregnant for eight months before giving birth, even though their babies weigh 10 times as much as a human newborn.
A healthy giraffe gestation can last from 14 to 16 months. Bailey's last pregnancy was one day shy of 15 months (457 days) long.
Female lions, lionesses, are able to give birth to cubs all year round, usually from the age of about three or four years old. Pregnancy lasts for around 110 to 120 days.
Once they are mature, sharks will usually mate in the spring and summer. The period of gestation can be anything from 9 months to 2 years ( frilled shark gestation period may be as long as 3.5 years). Most species have an average gestation period of 9-12 months.
Elephants give birth around every four years, and given their pregnancies can last around two years, that is quite a lot! Although elephants can live for 60-70 years, they typically only have about four or five babies during their lives.
Once considered rare, so-called virgin births have been documented among various species — including sawfish, snakes, sharks, and birds. The process, which is more common in the plant and insect worlds, allows a female organism to replicate itself without fertilization from a male.
The Guinness World Records for most children delivered at a single birth to survive is currently held by Nadya Suleman, who gave birth to six boys and two girls in California, US, in 2009. Last month, a 25-year-old Malian woman had given birth to nine babies, two more than doctors had detected during medical scans.
The only animals with longer gestation periods are elephants, which carry a fetus for close to 2 years! Camels and giraffes have pregnancies lasting 13 to 14 months, while female horses, sea lions and dolphins can require up to a year to give birth.
The mystery of the elephant's long pregnancy has been unravelled by scientists. A quirk of biology allows the unborn calf to develop in the womb for almost two years, giving it the brain power it needs to survive from birth.
How many days is a horse pregnant? A female horse's gestation period is approximately 326 days to 354 days. Gestation can be as long as 375 days and the record longest gestation period for a horse is over 400 days – just over 13 months!
One of the reasons elephant pregnancies are so long is because elephants are big. Due to their size, the development of elephants in the womb is slow. Elephants are also highly intelligent. The long elephant gestation period allows the baby elephant's brain to properly develop.
Pregnancy in dogs, also called the gestation period, normally ranges from 57-65 days, with an average of 63 days. With a planned breeding, you should record the exact date of mating. If there are two matings, note the dates and expect birth to occur between 63 and 65 days later.
The cat gestation period (cat pregnancy length) is about 63-65 days on average, or about two months.
Gestation length in goats is 145–155 days (average 150 days) and can be affected by breed, litter weight, environment, and parity. Generally, first-kidding does have one or two kids, and in subsequent kiddings, triplets and quadruplets are not uncommon.
A cow is pregnant for around nine months (or 279 to 292 days). The gestation length varies depending on several factors, such as the breed of the cow and the sex of the calf.
The average gestation period for sheep is around five months, although this may be a little shorter in some cases. However, a ewe's pregnancy is not usually obvious until about six weeks before giving birth to her offspring.