What are animals like beavers? What types of them exist? What do beavers eat in the wild? Where do these animals live? How do beavers care for their young? All this will be discussed in our publication.
General information
The beaver is the largest rodent in domestic latitudes. The body length of adult individuals can reach more than a meter. At the same time, a beaver can weigh about 30 kilograms.
The animals have a squat body, which is supported on short legs with webbed toes and powerful claws. Beavers have a massive head with a thick neck. The ears are small and short. A wide jaw and a pair of large incisor teeth allow it to gnaw through the trunks of large trees. Beavers are distinguished by their large, flat tail, which vaguely resembles an oar. The surface of the latter contains keratinized scales.
Varieties
The beaver family includes only two species of animals - the European river beaver and the Canadian beaver. Animals of the first category are the largest rodents that live in Europe. They inhabit rivers where the current is not too fast. Occasionally they can be seen in lakes and irrigation canals, the banks of which are generously overgrown with bushes and small trees.
As for Canadian beavers, these animals differ from their European counterparts in having a shortened muzzle, a not so elongated body, and large ears. They can be found almost throughout North America, in addition to arid regions.
Where do beavers live?
The favorite habitats of the animals are shallow reservoirs with little current. These animals prefer to settle away from large civilization. The main condition for them is access to an abundance of wood, which serves them not only as food, but also as material for building homes.
It is worth noting that at the beginning of the last century, beavers were on the verge of extinction. The reason was the uncontrolled extermination of these large rodents in pursuit of valuable fur. Our country was no exception. Fortunately, in Russia the problem was quickly resolved, which was facilitated by a policy aimed at protecting these animals. Currently, beavers spread freely in Russian latitudes. The largest populations are observed today in the European part of Russia, in western Siberia, in the Yenisei River basin, and in Kamchatka.
Lifestyle
Beavers are excellent swimmers. They are able to dive into the depths of bodies of water, holding their breath for a long time. An adult beaver can stay underwater for 10-15 minutes. Animals dive not only to search for food, but also at the first danger. Having noticed a predator, beavers perform active slaps of their tails on the water. Loud sounds warn relatives of the approach of a predator.
Beavers are known as skilled builders. Unique huts made of branches, snags and tree trunks protect them from natural enemies such as wolves, bears and wolverines. The beaver's house serves as excellent protection during the onset of cold weather. Even in extreme cold, their huts maintain a comfortable level of warmth.
Beavers spend the bulk of their day foraging for food, building dams, and constructing shelters. The animals prefer to work at dusk. Their work ends as soon as dawn comes.
Caring for offspring
Before telling how beavers take care of their young, I would like to note that the mating season for these animals starts in February. Females bear offspring until early summer. How many cubs does a beaver have? As a rule, 2-4 babies are born. In rare cases, one more baby is born.
From the first days of life, beavers have excellent vision and orientation in space, and their body, like that of adults, is covered with a thick fur coat. How do beavers care for their young? Females show a reverent attitude towards their offspring, trying to teach them useful skills. At first, the beaver has to literally force the babies out of the warm, cozy shelter into the water. However, such an attitude only brings benefits to the offspring. After all, beavers simply must be able to swim and dive well in the first weeks of life.
How else do beavers care for their young? For several months, females feed their babies with breast milk, carefully comb their fur, and do not give offense to their relatives. Beavers gradually switch their offspring to plant foods. At first, kids are offered all kinds of seaweed. Then they bring more solid food, in particular, young shoots of trees, foliage, and water lilies.
Until the age of one year, the cubs are under the full care of their adult relatives and rarely leave the shelter. As they grow older, they begin to rely on them to obtain food and strengthen housing. However, since beavers take care of their cubs for the longest period, even after becoming independent, the babies do not have to worry about the lack of food and their own safety.
Young beavers live in their parents' shelter until they reach two years of age. During this time, they manage to significantly increase in size and gain several tens of kilograms of live weight. As soon as young individuals comprehend the secrets of obtaining food, protecting themselves from enemies, building dams, constructing huts and arranging storerooms, they are forced to leave their “father’s home.” They part with their family, move a considerable distance from their place of birth and occupy new territories, where they build their own huts and find a couple to continue the family line.
What is a baby beaver called?
The babies of such animals are traditionally called beavers. However, people often call them kittens. Why is such a strange definition applied to the cubs of these animals? Probably the reason is the rather unusual sounds that young individuals make. Distantly, their screams resemble muffled meows. In addition, newborn beavers are similar in appearance to kittens.
What do beavers eat in the wild?
Beavers are vegetarians. The basis of their diet is the bark of various trees. Animals especially like birch, willow, and aspen. In reservoirs, beavers consume a significant amount of coastal vegetation, in particular, they eat cattails, iris, water lilies, and reeds.
Beavers are thrifty animals. They prepare food for future use, storing it in storerooms near their own homes. Here food gradually accumulates until the cold weather sets in. Thus, with the arrival of frost, the beaver’s house becomes not only a shelter, but also a kind of dining room.
As a rule, beavers obtain food in close proximity to their own shelter. However, it often happens that their reserves are washed away and carried away by the river current. In such situations, the animals have to go some distance from the shore of the reservoir in order to get enough of the tree bark. Since beavers are quite slow and clumsy on land, they often become easy prey for predators.
Beavers are one of the most amazing animals on our planet. They are smart, hardworking, clean, and enterprising. Like people, they live in family groups, have complex systems for transmitting information, build dwellings (huts), store food and create transport networks (ponds connected by canals). Would you like to learn more about how these rodents live in their natural habitat? Then this article is for you.
Beavers belong to the family Castaridae, which includes the only genus Castor and only 2 species:
- common beaver (Castor fiber) (also known as river or eastern beaver);
- Canadian beaver (aka North American) (Castor canadensis).
Today, North American beavers are found throughout the continent, from the mouth of the Mackenzie River in Canada south to northern Mexico. But it was not always so. People have hunted these animals for centuries for their meat, fur, and “beaver stream.” As a result, at the end of the 19th century, the number of Canadian individuals became critical, and in most of their habitats they were almost completely exterminated, especially in the eastern United States. State and local environmental agencies sounded the alarm, and animals began to be transported from other areas. They were also introduced in Finland, Russia, and a number of Central European countries (Germany, Austria, Poland). One of the largest populations of Canadian rodents today exists in southeastern Finland.
The common beaver in the past lived throughout Europe and Northern Asia, but not all populations were able to survive in the vicinity of humans. By the beginning of the 20th century, only a few relict populations with a total number of 1,200 individuals survived in France, Norway, Germany, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, China and Mongolia.
As a result of programs for the reintroduction and resettlement of these animals, which began in the first half of the last century, the number common beaver began to grow gradually. At the beginning of the 21st century, there were about 500-600 thousand individuals, and their habitat expanded both in Europe and Asia.
Both species are found on the territory of Russia today, although the original inhabitant is only the river beaver. Its range covers almost the entire forest zone of the Russian Federation - from the western borders to the Baikal region and Mongolia, and from the Murmansk region in the north to the Astrakhan region in the south. In addition, this species has acclimatized in Primorye and Kamchatka.
The Canadian beaver appeared in our country in the 50s of the last century, independently populating Karelia and Leningrad region from neighboring regions of Finland, and in the 70s this animal was introduced into the Amur River basin and Kamchatka.
Description of the beaver
The appearance of the beaver is very different from the appearance of other representatives of the rodent order, which is explained by the semi-aquatic lifestyle of our hero. From a biologist's point of view, the notable features of the beast are its huge incisors, flat scaly tail and webbed hind feet with a special forked “combing” claw on the second toe, as well as a number of structural features of the pharynx and digestive tract.
Beavers are the most massive rodent fauna of the Old World and the second largest rodents after the South American capybaras. The body of the animal is squat, dense, and has a spindle-shaped shape; its rear part is widened, only at the root of the tail it sharply narrows. Body length is 80 – 120 cm. Adults weigh on average 20-30 kg, rarely the weight can reach 45 kg. The Canadian species is slightly larger in size than the usual.
The relatively small rounded head with a meek and thick neck almost does not turn to the sides. The eyes are small, with a vertical pupil and a transparent nictitating membrane (to protect the eyes under water). The ears are small, barely protruding from the fur. The external auditory openings and nostrils have special muscles that contract when immersed in water. The lip projections can close behind the self-sharpening incisors, isolating the oral cavity, allowing beavers to chew on vegetation underwater without opening their mouths.
Animals' eyes react almost exclusively to movement; poor vision is more than compensated by excellent hearing and smell, which are the main senses on land.
The tail is flat, reaches 30 cm in length, 13 cm in width; in the Canadian beaver it is shorter and wider. The paddle-shaped part of the tail is covered with large horny scales, between which there are sparse hard bristles.
Beaver fur is light brown to black, most often reddish-brown. Sometimes there are piebald individuals with spots of different shades. The undercoat is thick and dark gray. The lower part of the body is more densely pubescent.
It has been noted that the light brown color type is older, it survived the Ice Age, therefore such beavers are better adapted to cold climates, while in more southern populations dark-colored individuals are most often found.
Lifestyle
Beavers constantly live near water. Their favorite habitats are cluttered, slow-flowing or stagnant forest reservoirs. The decisive factor for the settlement of a particular reservoir is the availability of food - trees and shrubs. Willow and aspen forests are more loved by animals. The rodent avoids large rivers with high floods, since its home may be flooded.
Beavers lead sedentary image life. For most of the year they are active in the twilight-night time, leaving their shelters at sunset and returning at dawn. In winter in northern latitudes, when the dams are covered with ice, the animals remain in their huts or under the ice all the time, since the temperature there remains around 0 ° C, while outside it is much colder.
On land, the beaver gives the impression of a slow and clumsy animal when it waddles, relying on large, clubbed hind legs and short front legs. However, in case of danger, he rushes to the water at a gallop.
Among all rodents, our hero is best adapted to movement in water. Its torpedo-shaped body is streamlined, and its fur is waterproof. It slowly swims near the surface of lakes, slowly moving its paws, while its tail serves as a kind of rudder. When diving or swimming at high speed, the rodent sharply swings its tail up and down and at the same time rows with its hind legs.
Like a woodcutter's axe, the front enamel of a rodent's teeth is especially reinforced. The softer back surface grinds down faster, creating a sharp chisel-shaped edge that makes cutting trees easier. With its sharp incisors, the animal can gnaw and knock down a tree up to one meter thick. Like all rodents, beavers have large incisors that grow at the same rate as they wear down.
In the photo, the beaver shows off its unique incisors.
This is what a rodent can do to trees
Dams and huts
Everyone has probably heard about the amazing construction talents of these animals. Thanks to their tirelessness, beavers have learned to adapt the environment to their own needs. The dams they create increase ecological diversity, expand water areas, increase the volume and quality of water, and modify the landscape. A tree that has fallen across the current is usually used as the basis for a dam. It is filled with branches, parts of tree trunks, stones, earth, and vegetation until the length of the dam exceeds 100 meters (the edges of the dam extend far beyond the channel), and the height often reaches three meters. In this case, the difference in water level reaches two meters. It happens that a family builds several dams at once, resulting in a whole cascade of ponds. Rodents are especially zealous in the construction of dams in spring and autumn, although work can continue all year round.
Beaver Dam
Beavers are skilled diggers. They usually dig numerous holes on a family property, which can be either simple tunnels or entire labyrinths leading from the bank of a stream or dam to one or more chambers. In many biotypes, these rodents use burrows as their main shelters.
This is what a beaver's hut looks like
Another option for a coastal dwelling is a hut. Beavers build them in places where making burrows is impossible. Animals use an old stump, low bank or raft as the base of the hut. Externally, such a dwelling is a large pile of branches, pieces of tree trunks, held together by earth, silt, and plant debris. A nesting chamber is set up inside, from where it goes under water. On average, the diameter of the hut reaches 3-4 meters. More complex structures have several chambers per different levels. Huts can be temporary or permanent, used over many years. The latter are constantly being completed and can reach 14 meters in diameter and more than two meters in height.
Among beavers' other construction activities, channel digging is the least difficult. With their front paws they scoop out silt and dirt from the bottom of small streams and swamp paths, throwing them to the sides from their path. The resulting channels allow animals to remain in the water while moving between dams or to feeding areas. Rodents mostly do this in the summer, when the water level is low.
It is worth noting that Canadian beavers are more diligent and active builders than ordinary beavers. Their buildings are more complex and durable, since they actively use stones in construction.
Diet
Beavers are exclusively herbivorous animals. The composition of their food may change seasonally. In spring and summer, the basis of their diet consists of leaves, roots, grasses, and algae. By autumn, they switch to thin branches of trees and shrubs, preferring aspen, willow or alder.
Starting from mid-October, rodents begin to prepare woody food for the winter. These can be thick branches and even parts of the trunks of aspen, willow, bird cherry, alder, birch, as well as a small number of conifers. Animals cut down trees into small pieces and store them under water in deep places not far from holes and huts. Beavers can swim to their supplies underwater without leaving the safety of the dam.
If there is not enough tree food, the animals are content with wetland vegetation. Sometimes raids on nearby gardens and vegetable gardens are possible.
Many European beavers They do not stockpile for the winter. Instead, they also go ashore in search of food in winter.
Castoreum
A characteristic feature of the animals is the presence of a “beaver stream” produced by special glands. It is a complex substance consisting of hundreds of components, including alcohols, phenols, salicylaldehyde and castoramine. The scientific name of this substance is castoreum.
Since ancient times, beaver streams have been attributed supernatural healing properties. In the Y-IY centuries BC. Hippocrates and Herodotus noted its effectiveness in the treatment of certain diseases. And today this substance has found use in folk medicine, but it is mainly used in perfumery.
The beaver itself uses its aromatic secretion for marking purposes. Scent marks are one of the ways our heroes exchange information. Both the Canadian and river species leave scent marks on mounds constructed near the water from silt and plants raised from the bottom of the reservoir.
Family relationships
Most often, beavers live in family groups (colonies), but there are also individuals that prefer a solitary lifestyle. On lands poor in food, the proportion of solitary animals can reach up to 40%.
A family consists of an adult pair, the current year's cubs, last year's cubs, and sometimes one or more juveniles from previous litters. Family sizes can reach 10-12 individuals.
The hierarchy in the colony is built according to age, with the dominant position of the adult couple. Displays of physical aggression are rare, although beavers may have scars on their tails in dense populations. This is the result of fights with strangers near territorial borders.
The pairs of these rodents are permanent and remain throughout the life of the partners. The family group is stable, partly due to the low reproduction rate. They bring one brood per year, in it from 1 to 5 cubs for an ordinary beaver; in a Canadian beaver, fertility is higher - up to 8 cubs. However, most often there are 2-3 cubs in a brood.
The rut begins in January (in the south of the range) and lasts until March. Pregnancy lasts 103-110 days.
Newborns are sighted, densely pubescent, with erupted lower incisors. The mother feeds the babies milk (and it is 4 times fattier than cow's milk) for about 6-8 weeks, although already at the age of two weeks the beavers begin to taste the tender leaves brought by their parents. At the age of 1 month, the younger generation begins to slowly leave the nest and feed on their own.
While the children are very small, the father spends most of his time protecting the family plot: he patrols the borders and leaves scent marks. At this time, the female is busy feeding the babies and caring for them. Babies grow quickly, but they need many months of practice to master the skills of building dams and huts. Their parents teach them to participate in all family activities, including construction.
Usually, young people leave their family and go in search of their future site in the second year and lead a solitary lifestyle until they get a pair.
Beavers reach sexual maturity in the second year of life, but females usually begin breeding at 3-5 years of age.
The maximum life expectancy of the common beaver in nature is 17-18 years, the Canadian beaver is 20 years. However, in natural conditions they rarely live more than 10 years. The maximum age of these rodents recorded in the nursery reached 30 years.
Communication
In addition to marking territory, beavers communicate with each other by flicking their tails across the water. This is usually how adults tell strangers that they have been spotted. A rodent that has invaded an occupied territory makes a response clap, which allows one to assess the seriousness of its intentions and the degree of threat it poses.
Another way of communication is through various postures, as well as voice: animals can grumble and hiss.
The benefits and harms of beavers
As already mentioned, beavers are known for their desire for construction: when establishing their settlements, they create dams that regulate the water level in reservoirs. As a result, water can flood large areas of the forest and destroy it. Hayfields and roads may be damaged.
The second negative point is that dams worsen the conditions for fish spawning, acting as a mechanical barrier for grayling, whitefish, salmon and trout fish to spawn in small rivers.
Now let's look at the activities of these animals from the other side. The cascade of beaver dams that has existed on the river for a long time retains melt and storm water, and this reduces the likelihood of floods during high water, reduces bottom and bank erosion, shortens the period of low summer water, and contributes to the restoration of the system of springs and streams destroyed as a result of human activity. All this makes the forest inhabited by animals less arid, and therefore much less susceptible to forest fires.
By slowing the flow of rivers, dams increase the accumulation of sediment, creating a natural filtration system that removes potentially harmful contaminants from the water. In addition, the resulting large bodies of water create other benefits, such as increased ecological diversity.
Beavers also improve the food supply for hares and deer, which feed on “waste” materials used to build dams, and this, in turn, attracts predatory animals.
Thus, these rodents play an important role in semi-aquatic systems, and humans can only increase our knowledge of their biological needs and develop strategies that would allow both people and beavers to share the landscape.
In contact with
Beavers are one of the most interesting animals on our planet. Self-sharpening incisor teeth help beavers not only cut down trees, but also build homes for themselves and even build dams.
Among the representatives of the rodent order, the beaver ranks second (after the copybara) in body weight, which reaches 32 kg. (sometimes 50 kg) with a body length of up to 80-100 cm and a tail length of 25-50 cm. In prehistoric times (during the Pleistocene era), beavers were much larger, their height reached 2.75 m, and their weight was 350 kg.
Modern beavers are divided into two species: the common beaver, common in Eurasia, and the Canadian beaver, whose natural habitat is North America. Due to the great similarity in appearance and habits between the two populations of beavers, until recently, the Canadian beaver was considered a subspecies of the common beaver, until it became clear that there is still a genetic difference between these species, since the common beaver has 48 chromosomes, while the Canadian one has only 40. In addition, Beavers of two species cannot interbreed.
The beaver has a squat body, five-fingered limbs with strong claws and a wide paddle-shaped tail. Contrary to popular belief, the tail of beavers is not at all a tool for building their homes; it serves as a rudder when swimming. The beaver is a semi-aquatic animal, therefore, much in the appearance of this mammal shows its adaptability to being in water: between the toes there are swimming membranes, especially strongly developed on the front legs, in the eyes of the beaver there are nictitating membranes that allow you to see under water, the ear openings and nostrils close under water, large lungs and liver provide such reserves of air and arterial blood that beavers can stay under water for 10-15 minutes, swimming up to 750 m during this time. A thick layer of subcutaneous fat protects against the cold.
Beavers are exclusively herbivorous; they feed on the bark and shoots of trees, preferring aspen, willow, poplar and birch, as well as various herbaceous plants (water lily, egg capsule, iris, cattail, reed). In order to obtain bark and shoots, as well as for construction needs, beavers cut down trees, gnawing them at the base. An aspen with a diameter of 5-7 cm can be felled by a beaver in 5 minutes, a tree with a diameter of 40 cm can be felled and cut up overnight. A beaver gnaws, rising on its hind legs and leaning on its tail. Its jaws act like a saw: to fell a tree, the beaver rests its upper incisors against its bark and begins to quickly move its lower jaw from side to side, making 5-6 movements per second. The beaver's incisors are self-sharpening: only the front side is covered with enamel, the back side consists of less hard dentin. When a beaver chews on something, the dentin wears down faster than the enamel, so the leading edge of the tooth remains sharp all the time.
Trees chewed by beavers:
Video about the life of beavers, where you can see how beavers gnaw trees:
Beavers live along the banks of slow-flowing rivers, as well as ponds, lakes, and reservoirs. For housing, beavers can dig holes in steep banks with several entrances, each of which is located under water so that land predators cannot penetrate there. If digging a hole is impossible, beavers build a special dwelling - a hut - right in the water. Beaver lodge- this is a pile of brushwood held together by silt and clay. The height of the hut can reach up to 3 meters, and the diameter up to 12 meters. Like a hole, a hut is a reliable shelter from predators. Inside the hut there are manholes under the water and a platform rising above the water level. The bottom of the hut is lined with bark and herbs. With the onset of the first frost, beavers additionally insulate the hut with new layers of clay. Air penetrates through the ceiling. In cold weather, clouds of steam can be seen above the beaver lodges. In the coldest weather, the temperature in the hut remains above zero, and even if the reservoir is covered with ice, the ice hole under the hut does not freeze, which is very important for beavers, because beavers store food reserves for the winter, prepared in winter, under the overhanging banks directly into the water, from where they then take them when the cold comes.
beaver hut
Beavers live alone or in families. A complete family consists of 5-8 individuals. The mating season for beavers is in winter. Cubs are born in April-May and can swim within one or two days. At the age of 3-4 weeks, beaver cubs switch to feeding on leaves and soft stems of grass, but the mother continues to feed them with milk until 3 months. Grown-up young animals usually do not leave their parents for another 2-3 years. In captivity, beavers live up to 35 years, in the wild 10-19 years.
The head of the beaver family marks the boundaries of his territory with the so-called “beaver stream” - special secretions that were previously actively used in medicine, and are now used in the creation of expensive perfumes.
In case of danger, beavers give an alarm signal to their relatives by striking the water with their tail.
To prevent water from flooding the hut during a flood or, conversely, the reservoir suddenly becoming shallow, beavers often build dams. Construction begins with beavers sticking branches and trunks into the bottom, strengthening the gaps with branches and reeds, filling the voids with silt, moss, clay and stones. They often use a tree that has fallen into the river as a supporting frame, gradually covering it on all sides with building material. The longest dam built by beavers was 850 meters long. If a dam somewhere begins to let in more water than necessary, the beavers immediately seal up this place. Thanks to their excellent hearing, beavers accurately determine the place where the water began to flow faster. One day, scientists conducted an experiment: on the shore of a reservoir, a tape recorder was turned on with the recorded sound of flowing water. Despite the fact that the tape recorder was standing on land and there was no trace of any flowing water, the beavers’ instinct worked and they immediately covered up the “leak” with mud.
Although beavers may seem like forest pests, beavers' activities actually have beneficial effects on the ecosystem. For example, the number of ducks in reservoirs improved by beavers is on average 75 times greater than in reservoirs without beavers. This is due to the fact that beaver dams and calm water attract shellfish and aquatic insects, which, in turn, attract waterfowl and muskrats. Birds bring fish eggs on their paws and beaver ponds become more fish. Trees felled by beavers serve as food for hares and many ungulates, which gnaw the bark from the trunks and branches. The sap that flows from undermined trees in the spring is loved by butterflies and ants, followed by birds. In addition, dams help purify water, reducing its turbidity, because silt lingers in them.
Beavers have long been hunted for their valuable fur and beaver stream. As a result, at the beginning of the 20th century, many European countries beavers were completely exterminated, and the total number of beavers in Eurasia was only 1,200 individuals. In the 20th century, largely due to active efforts to restore the beaver population in the Soviet Union, the situation began to gradually improve. In 1922, beaver hunting was banned in the USSR, and in 1923 the Voronezh Beaver Reserve was founded, where ideal conditions were created for beaver breeding. Beavers from the Voronezh Nature Reserve were resettled throughout the USSR, as well as in Poland, China, the GDR and other countries. Currently, the number of beavers in Russia exceeds 340 thousand, almost half are of Voronezh origin. The reserve is still open today, and when you visit it, you can take home photos of beavers (about 300 of them live here) taken with your own hands. In addition to beavers, the reserve has 333 species of vertebrates.
In North America, beavers were also brought to the brink of extinction, but their protection in the USA and Canada began at the end of the 19th century, and now there are 10-15 million beavers on the American continent, which is many times higher than the number of beavers in Eurasia (where there are about 640 of them) thousand according to data for 2003), however, it is much inferior to the time when the fur trade in America was not yet in fashion (at that time there were 100-200 million beavers in America).
Canadian beavers now live far beyond their natural range. In 1946, the Argentine government imported 25 pairs of Canadian beavers to the Tierra del Fuego archipelago to begin the beaver fur trade in the region. However, beavers, having found themselves in an ecosystem where they had no natural enemies, multiplied so much that they threatened local forests. Currently, 200 thousand beavers live on the archipelago.
In addition to Argentina, Canadian beavers were brought to Sweden and Finland, from where the beavers moved to the North-West of Russia, where they began to compete for territory with Eurasian beavers. The number of Canadian beavers in North-West Russia can reach up to 20 thousand individuals.
In Russian there is a word "beaver", but it is not a synonym for the word "beaver". "Beaver" is an animal, and "beaver" is the fur of a beaver.
The beaver is a semi-aquatic mammal that belongs to the rodent order and the beaver family. Beavers first appeared in Asia. Habitat: Europe, Asia, North America. In the past, these poor animals almost completely disappeared from the face of the earth. Naturally, through the fault of man, because many fur coats and hats were made from beautiful beaver skins.
The beaver's body length reaches up to 1.2 m. It can weigh about 30 kg. In nature, a beaver lives up to 17 years. The beaver has strong and flattened claws. Wide, short ears, small eyes, short legs, funny round tail. Fur color can vary from light chestnut to black.
Beavers settle near lakes, ponds, streams, reservoirs, rivers, and sometimes dig a burrow for themselves. Beavers are herbivores; they feed on tree shoots, bark, and various herbaceous plants. Beavers have very good teeth, which is why they sometimes fell trees by cutting them down at the base. Their teeth and jaw can be compared to a saw.
Beavers build their burrows from mud and branches. The house turns out to be half submerged under water; the hole has a main chamber located at the top. The entrance and “pantry” are used to store food supplies; they are located underground. Beavers gnaw trees at the base to sharpen them, separate them into different pieces and get the material they need. Beavers need mud, stones and trees to build dams, so they isolate their burrows, around them they form something like a small pond, the water level always remains the same. When it's cold, in winter, beavers are forced to swim underwater to get to their food supplies, because the surface is covered with ice.
The main enemies are foxes, wolves, brown bears and man.
The mating season for beavers begins in January and ends at the end of February. Mating occurs in water. Females carry their cubs for 105 days. Little beavers are born around April and May. They are born pubescent, semi-sighted, weighing 500 g. After about 2 days, beavers can begin to swim. Mom helps the beavers. They begin to eat leaves after 3-4 months, but the mother still feeds them with milk. After only 2 years, the beavers move out.
The beaver is a hardworking and persistent animal that has taught people a lot. Even people have borrowed something from these smart animals. For example, some engineering solutions and techniques in dam construction.
A selection of beaver photos
The Canadian beaver is a semi-aquatic mammal belonging to the rodent order. They are the second largest rodents. In addition, the Canadian beaver is the unofficial symbol of Canada.
Types of beavers
At the moment, there are two types of them: the Canadian beaver, the river beaver (European). They are very similar to each other, except that the first one is a little larger. They once ranged throughout Europe, North America and Asia, but today the population has declined significantly. This is the fault of the person who hunted these animals for their fur and meat.
Differences between Canadian and common beavers
Both representatives of the species are very similar in appearance, although the Eurasian one is different large sizes. It has a larger and less round head, while the muzzle is shorter. Also, the tail is narrower and the undercoat is smaller. In addition, the Eurasian has shorter limbs, therefore, it does not move well on its hind legs.
Almost 70% of common beavers have brown or light brown fur, 20% have chestnut fur, 8% have dark brown fur, and just 4% have black fur. Half of Canadian beavers have a light brown skin tone, 25% have a brown tint and 5% have a black tint.
The common beaver has much longer nasal bones and the nostrils are triangular in shape, while the Canadian beaver has triangular openings. Europeans have larger anal glands. In addition, there are differences in the color of the fur.
After repeated attempts to crossbreed an American male and a Eurasian female, the females either did not become pregnant at all or gave birth to dead cubs. Most likely, interspecific reproduction is impossible. There is not only a territorial barrier between these populations, but also a difference in DNA.
In addition to external differences, these two representatives of this family have differences in the number of chromosomes. Thus, Canadian beavers have forty chromosomes, while ordinary beavers have 48. The different number of chromosomes is the reason for the unsuccessful crossing of these representatives of different continents.
Another difference between beavers can be considered a disaster: the Canadian beaver does not build dams, it creates huge dams compared to the buildings of its brother from Europe. Such structures can stretch for several hundred meters in length. Since today the Canadian beaver actively populates regions in Russia, their structures radically change the ecology. As a result, dams in the surrounding area cause floods, and what’s interesting is that the less rugged the terrain they inhabit, the larger their zone of influence! They change the fullness of rivers with all the ensuing environmental problems. In addition, Canadian vandals “mow down” the nearby forests, which form the coastlines and, in general, are the most important environmental factor. In addition, beavers from nearby state farms and farms steal crops, and also commit outrages there in every possible way.
Spreading
The Canadian beaver is found in Alaska (in North America), except on the northern, northeastern and eastern coasts; In Canada; in the USA almost everywhere, except Florida, most of Nevada and California; in the northern part of Mexico. It was also brought to the countries of Scandinavia. From Finland he entered the Leningrad region and Karelia. It was introduced on Sakhalin and Kamchatka, as well as in the Amur basin.
Lifestyle
His lifestyle is similar to that of the Eurasian. The Canadian beaver is also active at night, only sometimes appearing during the day and sometimes moving far from the water. Animals dive and swim remarkably well and can stay underwater for up to fifteen minutes. Beavers live in families of up to eight individuals - a parent pair and its children. Young individuals stay with their parents for up to two years. Families are always territorial and protect their areas from other animals.
The boundaries of the site are marked (with the secretion of the anal glands), which is applied to mounds of silt and dirt. When in danger, animals hit the water with their tails, thus giving an alarm signal. Like the Eurasians, they live in huts, which they build from brushwood smeared with earth and silt. From the huts there are passages under the water; in them the floor is covered with bark, wood shavings and grass. The Canadian beaver settles in burrows much less frequently than its Eurasian counterpart. To regulate the flow speed and water level, he builds dams on rivers from branches, logs, silt, stones, and clay. Canadians have excellent construction skills.
Reproduction
Typically, beavers live in families consisting of a female and a male, as well as young animals of the previous and current year. The breeding season in most places is January-February. The offspring of the previous year, who are about two years old at this time, are expelled from the colony to search for shelter elsewhere, as well as for their mate.
The gestation period is 107 days, and the male and his children temporarily move into a special burrow until the birth of the offspring between April and June. The act of birth takes several days, usually up to 5 beaver cubs are born. The babies are completely pubescent, their incisors are visible, and their eyes are open. Just after being born, beaver cubs can enter the water quite calmly, since they can swim from the moment they appear. The majority of adult individuals are monogamous; a couple can break up only with the death of a partner.
Nutrition
The Canadian or North American beaver eats exclusively plant foods. These animals feed on shoots and bark of trees; they choose willow, aspen, birch and poplar. In addition, they eat all kinds of herbaceous plants (water lily, cattail, iris, reed, etc., up to three hundred items in total). A huge number of softwood trees is a necessary condition for their habitat. Linden, hazel, bird cherry, elm and other trees are of secondary importance in their diet. They do not eat oak and alder, but use it for their buildings. The daily amount of food is up to a fifth of the animal's weight. A powerful bite and large teeth enable beavers to easily cope with plant-based solid food.
In the summer, the proportion of herbaceous food in the beaver diet increases. At the same time, in the fall they prepare food for frost. They put their reserves in water, where they are able to retain their valuable nutritional qualities until February. To prevent food from freezing into the ice, beavers melt it under overhanging steep banks below the water level. So even after the reservoir freezes, food remains accessible under thick ice.
Number
The Canadian beaver, unlike the Eurasian beaver, which was almost completely exterminated, suffered much less. It is not a protected species; its number reaches 15 million individuals, but before the colonization of North America there were tens of times more of them. These animals were intensively hunted for meat and fur, and this led to a rapid reduction in their range by the beginning of the nineteenth century. Then, thanks to restoration and conservation measures, their total number increased significantly.
Man and beaver
At the moment, the Canadian beaver in some countries is considered an extremely harmful animal, since the dams built by these animals lead to flooding of the area. Moreover, their construction activities can completely destroy vegetation along the banks. Although in general, beavers have a good impact on coastal and aquatic biotopes, while creating conditions for the flourishing of various organisms.
The beaver is the national animal of Canada. He is depicted on the 5 cent coin. In addition, it is a symbol of the states of New York and Oregon, and is also depicted on the emblems of the California and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Fur coat: Canadian beaver
Such a fur coat has been valued in Rus' for a long time. This is exceptionally fluffy, soft and very warm fur. Having a unique undercoat, it is well suited to Russian climate conditions and is able to protect against any bad weather. In terms of wearability (this is considered one of the main criteria in the hierarchy of valuable furs), such a fur coat is superior even to mink. In addition, the beaver is not afraid of moisture, and this is a huge rarity among furs. Also, under wet snow it only becomes fluffier.
This fur is not the easiest to work with. Plucked fur is considered exclusive and, therefore, the most expensive. Plucking technology is a labor-intensive jewelry process that greatly increases the cost of a fur coat, while making it especially airy and light. Only whole skins of young animals are used in this work. For each product, the color scheme is selected individually. Sometimes it may take whole year. Although the result of this is a real picture of a harmonious color scheme, shimmering with natural shades from light to dark.
- During bathing, the flat beaver tail serves as a real oar for the animal.
- The beaver is considered the second largest (after the capybara) of rodents living today.
- At emergency he loudly slaps his tail on the water in order to warn his relatives.
- The animal has webbed feet, which makes it an excellent swimmer.
- A beaver can remain underwater for fifteen minutes.
