A beaver is a large mammal. Body length 1-1.3 m. Height from ground to shoulders 30-35 cm. Weight up to 30 kg. It belongs to a group of rodents, in which it is surpassed only by the capybara from South America. The beaver family has only two species.
The lifestyle is semi-aquatic. Lives in the middle lane. The area of distribution over the centuries has greatly decreased due to the destruction of beavers for their valuable fur. Thanks to the activities of the Society for the Protection of Nature, the population of these rodents has grown significantly. Today, the scale of animal dispersal can be compared with the level of the 17th century.
They live in families, in so-called huts made of branches and trunks of trees. The outside of the house is covered with clay. The need for such construction is caused by a number of natural reasons. In the raw swampy area where beavers usually live, it is impossible to dig a dry hole, so they have to create their “apartments” above the water level. Such a building allows you to lead an active lifestyle even in winter.
The entrance to the beaver hut is always under water, despite the fact that the hut itself is located above its surface.
They build not only huts, but also hydrotechnical structures. Beavers need a pond with stagnant water for a comfortable life. If necessary, they create a dam in the channel of any stream, blocking it with a dam. The liquid level is controlled using special channels. They are also used to supply construction material.
Beavers are neat. They do not litter their housing and the territory of hydrotechnical structures with excrement and leftover food. And for thorough cleaning of their own wool, nature endowed them with a special bifurcated toe on the left foot.
Another physiological feature of the beaver is the lower lip, which allows the animal to bite and feed underwaterwithout the risk of choking.
The volume of the respiratory system helps the beaver be with water for up to 15 minutes and swim more than 500 meters. The ability to swim well is ensured by a rigid paddle-shaped tail.
Beavers make reserves for the winter, but store them, unlike other prudent rodents, in a semi-submerged form. In order to have access to food from the water under the ice in winter frosts. Stock volumes reach tens of cubic meters.
Interesting Holidays:
Beaver mating takes place under water. The mating season falls on winter. The birth of cubs continues until the last month of spring. After a few days, beavers in the amount of 2-4 swim in the water next to their mother.
Beavers have several ways to communicate with each other.
- Marks are made with the help of an endocrine gland located at the base of the tail.
- They make whistle-like sounds with their mouths. But the most used noise signal in the arsenal of animals is a sharp blow of the tail against the surface of the water. Most often, he informs about danger and urges to dive urgently.
Sometimes beavers allow family representatives of the fauna to live in their huts. In particular, this applies to the muskrat.
A special bacterium that lives in the stomachs of beavers helps digest rough food, which consists mainly of cellulose.
The speed with which rodents cope with felling trees is impressive. For a trunk 10 cm thick, they need no more than 5 minutes of hard work. And an adult beaver can handle a tree 40 centimeters thick in one day.
Sometimes beavers die under the same fallen trees. Errors also occur in the location of the dam. Often, the water in the newly created reservoir damages human buildings and washes away railway embankments.
In the Middle Ages, monks considered beavers fish. They did this in order to eat their meat during fasting, when you can eat fish, but you can’t eat meat.
Beavers do not teach their cubs to build huts and dams – all of them able to do it from birth.
Beaver cubs spend at least two years with their parents before entering independent adulthood.
Beavers have double eyelids. One pair of eyelids, for staying under water – transparent. Many other animals swim underwater with their eyes open, but no one else has transparent eyelids. Where the beaver swims, the water is polluted with wood chips, branches, and construction waste. Therefore, transparent eyelids simultaneously protect the eyes and allow orientation under water.
The largest ever discovered beaver dam was approx seven hundred meters.
In captivity, beavers usually live much longer than in the wild – up to forty years.
