", The Romance of the Beaver: Being the History of the Beaver in the Western Hemisphere, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Beaver&oldid=981237460, Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls, Articles with dead external links from July 2018, Articles with permanently dead external links, Articles with dead external links from December 2019, Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages, Wikipedia indefinitely move-protected pages, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 1 October 2020, at 03:19. The animal has long been associated with Canada, appearing on the coat of arms of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1678. Due to the aquatic habitat and behavior of a Beaver, the Catholic Church officially categorized it as a type of fish, making it edible on Good Friday and throughout Lent. [8] The linages of the two beaver species are estimated to have split around 7.5 mya. Beavers will also store fat in their tails, eating more in the fall so they can survive off the fat stored in their tails through winter if food is not available. The second claw of the hindfoot is split and is used for combing the fur to keep it fluffy. Beavers also build dome-like lodges that rise 6.5 feet (2 meters) or more and can reach widths of 39 feet (12 meters). [18], Beavers have one opening, a cloaca, that contains the genital, digestive and excretory openings. However, while copying behavior helps imprint life skills in young beavers, it is not necessarily immediately beneficial for parents as the young beaver do not perform the tasks as well as the parents. North America beavers can colonize an area where aspen is around 60 m (200 ft) from the water, but can harvest trees several hundred meters away. Beaver tails were a delicacy in medieval Europe and were described as having the flavor of a nicely dressed eel.
A beaver hats was considered a luxury item in 17th century England and will cost £4. Beaver Lodges. [46][47] One study found that engineering by beavers leads to a 33 percent increase in the number of herbaceous plant species in riparian areas. With shallow stagnant water, the animals slowly build up mud, leaves and small twigs. For the town in Alberta, Canada, see, Depiction of a beaver hunt from a medieval, A beaver pelt. In water, however, beavers can swim up to 6 mph (10 kilometers per hour). Beavers are one of the few animals that modify their habitat; they build watertight dams of sticks woven with reeds, branches and saplings, which are caulked with mud. They may dig tunnels, or bank holes, into steep sloped banks with entrances another water. The genus Castor was coined by Carl Linnaeus in 1758[3] who also classified the species name fiber. [25][26], The Eurasian beaver's range is less continuous. The city of Montreal and the Canadian Pacific Railway bear the beaver on their crest or coat of arms. Physical aggression is rare and vocalizations, gestures and postures are used within the lodge to communicate issues of dominance status within the group. Population: 6–12 million Beaver pairs mate for life; however, if a beaver's mate dies, it will partner with another one.
[32] Non-woody plants consumed by the animals include aquatic plants like water-shields and lilies, as well as ferns, raspberrys, grasses and sedges. North American beavers are the largest rodents in North America and the second largest in the world (South America's capybaras being the heaviest). Beavers are the largest rodents in North America and the second largest in the world (South America's capybaras being the heaviest). By building dams, beavers create new habitats that can support an incredibly diverse biological community. Adult males and females live in monogamous pairs with their kits and yearlings. The young remain with their parents for two years, helping with lodge maintenance and raising the next generation of kits until they are, usually, driven away just before the birth of a new litter. They take to the water inside the lodge within a half hour after birth. He also stated that it could cure hiccups when mixed with vinegar, toothaches if mixed with oil and injected into the ear on the same side and coould be used as an antivenom. Lodge building takes place mainly at night and one sturdy enough to withstand the coming winter can be built in just two nights. The outer enamel of the incisors is very thick and colored orange due to the presence of iron. The entrances to it are submerged under the water and roof is sealed up with mud aside from an air vent at the top. [64], Both the male and female take part in raising offspring. The former are 5–6 m (16–20 ft) long and typically reddish brown, but can range from yellowish brown to nearly black; while the latter are 2–3 cm (0.79–1.18 in) long and dark gray. Trappers will kill entire families in a lodge and even killed then during the summer.
These large rodents move with an ungainly waddle on land but are graceful in the water, where they use their large, webbed rear feet like swimming fins, and their paddle-shaped tails like rudders. They are social animals, and each group is made up of one breeding pair, the year's kits and the surviving offspring from the previous year, called yearlings. Both tree species grow quickly and have soft wood for chewing and peeling. Intoduced beavers at Tierra del Fuego have destroyed around sixteen million hectares of indigenous forest. Beavers regularly move between aquatic and terrestrial environments. At the Smithsonian's National Zoo, beavers have occasionally been heard hissing if they are unhappy. [79], Beaver were particularly easy to find for trappers as they stayed in one place. As such, territories with more scent mounts are avoided more often than ones with fewer mounts. The beaver is unique among rodents in that it builds scent mounds — heaps of mud, sticks and grass up to one-third of a meter high and about a meter wide on which they deposit scents from their anal glands.
These poles are weighed down by heavy rocks with grass stuffed in-between them. Castor includes two extant species, the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) (native to North America) and Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) (). Beavers hold their food with their front paws, eating corn-on-the-cob style. Much of the exploration of the New World developed from the fur trade. [30], Beavers prefer areas with flatter terrain but can be found in mountainous areas. Whiskers help detect objects around a beaver's face and head, which is especially helpful in narrow passageways and dark water. There are two extant species, the North American beaver (Castor canadensis) and Eurasian beaver (C. fiber). †C. The castor sacs secrete castoreum, a urine based substance, which is mainly used for marking territory. [40] Beaver will also cache their food for the winter, piling up branches and saplings next to their lodge. Aesop's Fables describes beavers chewing off their testicles to preserve themselves from hunters, (which is not possible because the beaver's testicles are inside its body) and this myth has persisted for centuries. [74] Beavers also exhibit a behavior known as the "dear enemy effect". Beavers have two premolars and six molars for each jaw adding up to 20 teeth in total. They have a head-body length of 80–120 cm (31–47 in), with a 25–50 cm (9.8–19.7 in) tail, a shoulder height of 30–60 cm (12–24 in) and a weight of 11–30 kg (24–66 lb). Beavers communicate outside of their family unit by depositing scents around the edges of their territory. The closet known relatives of the Castoridae are members of the extinct family Eutypomyidae. [65] Beaver kits are weaned at ten weeks. A territory-holding beaver will investigate and become familiar with the scents of its neighbors. However, in regions where ponds freeze over throughout the winter season, beavers may stay in their lodges or under the ice using their fat reserves and feeding off the cache they have gathered. The Beaver Population in North America Has Declined Drastically. Beavers are known for building dams and lodges using tree branches, vegatation and mud. [88] Beavers have also been featured in animated series such as the The Angry Beavers and Happy Tree Friends. In areas with no trees, beavers may use brush. Typically performed by an adult, this alarm signal alerts others in the area to seek refuge in deep water. It also stores fat and has a countercurrent blood vessel system which allows the animal to reduce heat loss by 25% during the summer and 2% in the winter. Domelike beaver homes, called lodges, are also constructed of branches and mud.
Cognates in other Germanic languages include the Old Saxon bibar, the Old Norse bjorr, the Middle Dutch and Dutch bever, the Low German bever, the Old High German bibar and the Modern German Biber. californicus†Castor plicidens. [14] The fur comes in two forms; the longer, coarser guard hairs and softer, woolier underfur. [33], Beavers eat the bark of trees.
Beaver use log poles, around 2 m (6 ft 7 in) long and 5 cm (2.0 in) around, to brace against the banks and align in the direction of the water flow and at an angle of 30 degrees.
One of the more concerning beaver facts is that the beaver population in North America declined drastically in the 20th century. [8][9], The most basal group of castorids were the Agnotocastorinae, which had several "primitive" features shared with the Eutypomyidae; such as more complex occlusion between the cheek teeth, parallel upper tooth rows, premolars close to the molars in size, the presence of a third set of premolars (P3) and the stapedius muscle, smooth palatine bone with a posteriorly located palatine foramen and an elongated rostrum. A beaver's teeth, which are orange due to their protective coating, grow continuously throughout its lifetime. You can help us by donating to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute’s Emergency Fund today. They weigh between 35 and 65 pounds (16 to 30 kilograms), with the heaviest beaver on record weighing 110 pounds (50 kilograms). Beavers tend to be cautious when on land and escape in to the water when they sense a threat. Their chief building materials are also their preferred foods: poplar, aspen, willow, birch and maple. [43], The beaver works as a keystone species in an ecosystem by creating wetlands that are used by many other species. Addicted to the panda cam? [13] Their bodies are drop-shaped like other aquatic animals. protection of entrances to their lodges, and safety from land-dwelling predators such as canids, felids and bears. [71], Beavers have been hunted, trapped and exploited for their fur, meat and castoreum. [55] Beaver modifications to streams in Poland have been associated with increased bat activity. The activity of castoreum has been credited to the accumulation of salicin from willow trees in the beaver's diet, which is transformed to salicylic acid and has an action very similar to aspirin. In some areas, beavers have been recorded using streams with gradients as high as 15%. These teeth are self-sharpening and can cleave a willow the size of a person's finger in a single bite! But they also transform less suitable habitats by building dams.
In the absence of solar "cues," a beaver's activity is not synchronized with the solar day. Educational Activities You Can Do at Home, About the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Bringing the Zoo to You: April 2020 Edition, Beaver Dies at Smithsonian's National Zoo, #PandaStory: Giant Panda Cub Exam (Sept. 25). Many engineering schools in the US use the American beaver as their mascot. [81] Beaver pelts were mainly used to make hats. Often built away from the shore, these lodges form islands that can only be entered from underwater. Mating typically takes place in the water but may also occur in the lodge, and lasts 30 seconds to 3 minutes. They can remain underwater for 15 minutes without surfacing, and have a set of transparent eyelids that function much like goggles. Us too!