The common beaver, or river beaver, is a semi-aquatic mammal of the rodent order; one of two modern representatives the beaver family (along with the Canadian beaver, which was previously considered a subspecies). The largest rodent of the Old World fauna and the second largest rodent after the capybara.
The word “beaver” is inherited from the Proto-Indo-European language (cf. German Biber; German Bebros), formed by incomplete doubling of the name for the color brown. Reconstructed base *bhe-bhru-. According to authoritative linguistic sources, the word beaver should be used in the meaning of an animal from the order of rodents with valuable fur, and beaver - in the meaning of the fur of this animal: beaver collar, clothing with beaver fur. However, in spoken language the word beaver is widely used as a synonym for beaver (like fox and vixen, ferret and polecat).
The beaver is a large rodent adapted to a semi-aquatic lifestyle. The length of its body reaches 1-1.3 m, the height at the shoulder is up to 35.5 cm, and the weight is up to 30-32 kg. Sexual dimorphism is weakly expressed, females are larger. The beaver's body is squat, with shortened 5-toed limbs; the rear ones are much stronger than the front ones. Between the toes there are swimming membranes, strongly developed on the hind limbs and weakly developed on the forelimbs. The claws on the paws are strong and flattened. Claw of the second finger hind limbs forked - the beaver combs its fur with it. The tail is oar-shaped, strongly flattened from top to bottom; its length is up to 30 cm, width - 10-13 cm. The tail has hair only at its base. Most of it is covered with large horny scutes, between which sparse, short and stiff hairs grow. Up by midline the tail has a horny keel. The beaver's eyes are small; The ears are wide and short, barely protruding above the level of the fur. The ear openings and nostrils close under water, the eyes are closed by nictitating membranes. Molars usually do not have roots; weakly isolated roots are formed only in some old individuals. The incisors behind are isolated from the oral cavity by special outgrowths of the lips, which allows the beaver to gnaw under water. The karyotype of the common beaver has 48 chromosomes (the Canadian beaver has 40). The beaver has beautiful fur, which consists of coarse guard hairs and very thick silky underfur. The fur color ranges from light chestnut to dark brown, sometimes black. The tail and limbs are black. Shedding occurs once a year, at the end of spring, but continues almost until winter. In the anal area there are paired glands, wen and the beaver stream itself, which secretes a strong-smelling secretion - beaver stream. The prevailing opinion about the use of wen as a lubricant for fur from getting wet is wrong. The secretion of the wen performs a communicative function, exclusively carrying information about the owner (gender, age). The smell of a beaver stream serves as a guide to other beavers about the border of the territory of a beaver settlement; it is unique, like fingerprints. The secretion of wen, used in conjunction with the jet, allows you to keep the beaver tag in a “working” state longer due to its oily structure, which evaporates much later. longer secret beaver stream.
In early historical times, the common beaver was distributed throughout the forest-meadow zone of Europe and Asia, but due to intensive hunting, by the beginning of the 20th century, the beaver was practically exterminated in most of its range. The beaver's current range is largely the result of acclimatization and reintroduction efforts. In Europe, it lives in the Scandinavian countries, the lower reaches of the Rhone (France), the Elbe basin (Germany), the Vistula basin (Poland), in the forest and partly forest-steppe zones of the European part of Russia. In Russia, the beaver is also found in the Northern Trans-Urals. There are scattered habitats of the common beaver in the upper reaches of the Yenisei, Kuzbass, Baikal region, Khabarovsk Territory, and Kamchatka. In addition, it is found in Mongolia (Urungu and Bimen rivers) and in Northeast China (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region).
LifestyleIn early historical times, beavers everywhere inhabited the forest, taiga and forest-steppe zones of Eurasia, along the floodplains of rivers reaching the forest-tundra to the north, and semi-deserts to the south. Beavers prefer to settle along the banks of slow-flowing rivers, oxbow lakes, ponds and lakes, reservoirs, irrigation canals and quarries. Avoid wide and fast rivers, as well as reservoirs that freeze to the bottom in winter. For beavers, it is important to have soft trees and shrubs along the banks of the reservoir. hardwood, as well as the abundance of aquatic and coastal herbaceous vegetation that makes up their diet. Beavers are excellent swimmers and divers. Large lungs and liver provide them with 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. On land, beavers are quite clumsy.
Beavers live alone or in families. A complete family consists of 5-8 individuals: married couple and young beavers - the offspring of last and current years. A family plot is sometimes occupied by the family for many generations. A small pond is occupied by one family or single beaver. On larger bodies of water, the length of the family plot along the shore ranges from 0.3 to 2.9 km. Beavers rarely move more than 200 m away from water. The length of the area depends on the amount of food. In areas rich in vegetation, areas may touch each other and even intersect. Beavers mark the boundaries of their territory with the secretion of their musk glands - a beaver stream. Marks are applied to special mounds of mud, silt and branches 30 cm high and up to 1 m wide. Beavers communicate with each other using odorous marks, poses, tail strikes on the water and whistle-like calls. When in danger, a swimming beaver slaps its tail loudly on the water and dives. The clap serves as an alarm signal to all beavers within earshot. Beavers are active at night and at dusk. In summer, they leave their homes at dusk and work until 4-6 am. In the fall, when the preparation of feed for the winter begins, the working day lengthens to 10-12 hours. In winter, activity decreases and shifts to daylight hours; At this time of year, beavers hardly appear on the surface. At temperatures below?20 °C, animals remain in their homes.
Beavers live in burrows or huts. The entrance to a beaver's home is always located under water. Beavers dig burrows in steep banks; they are a complex labyrinth with 4-5 entrances. The walls and ceiling of the hole are carefully leveled and compacted. The living chamber inside the hole is located at a depth of no more than 1 m. The width of the living chamber is a little more than a meter, the height is 40-50 centimeters. The floor must be 20 centimeters above the water level. If the water in the river rises, the beaver also raises the floor, scraping soil from the ceiling. Sometimes the ceiling of the hole is destroyed and in its place a flooring of branches and brushwood is built, turning the hole into transitional type shelter - half-hut. In the spring, during high water, beavers build nests on the tops of bushes from branches and twigs with a bedding of dry grass. Huts are built in places where digging a hole is impossible - on low, swampy banks and in shallows. Beavers rarely begin building new housing before the end of August. The huts have the appearance of a cone-shaped pile of brushwood, held together by silt and earth, up to 1-3 m high and up to 10-12 m in diameter. The walls of the hut are carefully coated with silt and clay, so that it turns into a real fortress, impregnable to predators; air enters through the ceiling. Despite popular belief, beavers apply clay using their front paws, not their tail (the tail serves only as a rudder). Inside the hut there are manholes into the water and a platform rising above the water level. With the first frost, beavers additionally insulate their huts with a new layer of clay. In winter, the temperature in the huts remains above zero, the water in the holes does not freeze, and beavers have the opportunity to go out into the under-ice layer of the reservoir. IN very coldy There is steam above the huts, which is a sign of habitation. Sometimes in the same beaver settlement there are both huts and burrows. Beavers are very clean and never litter their homes with leftover food or excrement.
In reservoirs with changing water levels, as well as on small streams and rivers, beaver families build their famous dams (dams). This allows them to raise, maintain and regulate the water level in a reservoir. Dams are built below the beaver town from tree trunks, branches and brushwood, held together by clay, silt, pieces of driftwood and other materials that beavers bring in their teeth or front paws. If the reservoir has fast current and at the bottom there are stones, they are also used as building material. The weight of stones can reach 15-18 kg. For the construction of the dam, places where trees grow closer to the edge of the shore are selected. Construction begins with beavers vertically sticking branches and trunks into the bottom, strengthening the gaps with branches and reeds, filling the voids with silt, 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. Sometimes branches in beaver dams take root, giving them additional strength. The usual length of the dam is 20-30 m, width at the base is 4-6 m, at the crest - 1-2 m; the height can reach 4.8 m, although usually 2 m. The old dam can easily support the weight of a person. The record in the construction of dams belongs, however, not to ordinary beavers, but to Canadian beavers - the dam they built on the river. Jefferson (Montana), reached a length of 700 m. The shape of the dam depends on the speed of the current - where it is slow, the dam is almost straight; on fast rivers it is curved towards the flow. If the current is very strong, beavers build small additional dams further up the river. The dam is often provided with a drain to prevent it from being breached by floods. On average, it takes a beaver family about a week to build a 10 m dam. Beavers carefully monitor the safety of the dam and patch it if it leaks. Sometimes several families working in shifts participate in the construction.
Swedish ethologist Wilson (1971) and French zoologist Richard (1967, 1980) made major contributions to the study of beaver behavior during dam construction. It turned out that the main incentive for construction is noise flowing water. Possessing excellent hearing, beavers accurately determined where the sound had changed, which meant changes had occurred in the structure of the dam. At the same time, they did not even pay attention to the lack of water - the beavers reacted in exactly the same way to the sound of water recorded on a tape recorder. Further experiments showed that sound, apparently, is not the only stimulus. Thus, beavers clogged a pipe laid through a dam with silt and branches, even if it ran along the bottom and was “inaudible.” At the same time, it remains not entirely clear how beavers distribute responsibilities among themselves during collective work. To build and prepare food, beavers cut down trees, gnawing them at the base, gnawing off branches, then dividing the trunk into parts. A beaver fells an aspen with a diameter of 5-7 cm in 5 minutes; a tree with a diameter of 40 cm is felled and cut up overnight, so that by morning only a sanded stump and a pile of shavings remains at the place where the animal works. The trunk of a tree gnawed by a beaver takes on a characteristic “hourglass” shape. 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 upper incisors into its cortex and begins to quickly move the 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. Beavers eat some of the branches of a fallen tree on the spot, while others are demolished and towed or floated across the water to their home or to the site of dam construction. Every year, walking the same routes for food and building materials, they trample paths on the shore that are gradually filled with water - beaver canals. They float wood food along them. The length of the channel reaches hundreds of meters with a width of 40-50 cm and a depth of up to 1 m. Beavers always keep the channels clean.
Beavers are strictly 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, etc., up to 300 items). Abundance of trees soft rocks constitutes a necessary condition for their habitat. Hazel, linden, elm, bird cherry and some other trees are of secondary importance in their diet. Alder and oak are not eaten, but are used for buildings. The daily amount of food accounts for up to 20% of a beaver's weight. Large teeth and a powerful bite allow beavers to easily cope with solid plant food. Food rich in cellulose is digested with the participation of microflora intestinal tract. Typically, the beaver consumes only a few tree species; To switch to a new diet, it requires an adaptation period, during which microorganisms adapt to the new diet. In summer, the proportion of herbaceous food in the beaver diet increases. In autumn, beavers prepare wood food for the winter. Beavers store their reserves in water, where they store their reserves until February. nutritional quality. The volume of reserves can be huge - up to 60-70 cubic meters per family. To prevent food from freezing into the ice, beavers usually heat it below the water level under steep overhanging banks. Thus, even after the pond freezes, food remains available to the beavers under the ice.
Beavers are monogamous and the female is dominant. Offspring are born once a year. The mating season lasts from mid-January to the end of February; Mating occurs in the water under the ice. Pregnancy lasts 105-107 days. Cubs (1-6 per litter) will be born in April - May. They are semi-sighted, well-furred, and weigh on average 0.45 kg. After 1-2 days they can already swim; the mother trains the beaver cubs by literally pushing them into the underwater corridor. 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 years. Only at 2 years old do young beavers reach sexual maturity and move out. In captivity, a beaver lives up to 35 years, in the wild 10-17 years.
They are striking in their hard work, seriousness and personify order and devotion.
Man made the animal a positive hero of fairy tales and fables about the eternal values of life. You just need to distinguish between consonant words: beaver is an animal, and beaver is the name of its fur.
Features and habitat of the beaver
In the order of rodents, this river mammal is one of the largest, reaching 30 kg or more in weight. The body is squat and elongated up to 1.5 m in length, up to approximately 30 cm in height. Short limbs with five fingers, between which there are membranes. The hind legs are much stronger than the front legs.
The claws are strong, curved and flattened. On the second finger the claw is forked, similar to a comb. This is what the animal uses to comb its beautiful and valuable fur. The fur consists of hard guard hairs and dense undercoat, reliable protection from hypothermia, since it does not get wet well in water.
A layer of subcutaneous fat, which retains internal heat, also protects from the cold. The color range of the coat ranges from chestnut to dark brown, almost black, like the paws and tail.
Because of its valuable and beautiful fur, the animal was almost destroyed as a species: there were a lot of people who wanted to get a fur coat and a hat made from the animal’s skin. Eventually beaver added to the list animals of the Red Book.
The animal's tail is like a paddle, 30 cm in size and up to 11-13 cm wide. The surface is covered with large scales and hard bristles. The shape of the tail and some other characteristics distinguish the Eurasian, or common beaver, from its American (Canadian) relative.
At the tail there are wen and two glands for the production of an odorous substance, which is called beaver stream. The secret of wen is to preserve information about the individual (age, gender), and the smell indicates the boundaries of the occupied territory. An interesting fact is that beaver streams are unique, like human fingerprints. The substance is used in perfumery.
In the photo there is a river beaver
On the small muzzle, short ears barely protruding from the fur are visible. Despite the size of the auditory organs, the animal has excellent hearing. When immersed in water, the animal’s nostrils and ears are closed, the eyes are protected by the “third eyelid” and are protected from injury.
The nictitating membrane allows the animal to be seen in dense water. The beaver's lips are also specially designed in such a way that it does not choke and water does not enter the oral cavity when it gnaws.
Large lung volumes allow the animal to swim, without appearing on the water surface, up to 700 m, spending approximately 15 minutes. These are record figures for semi-aquatic animals.
live animals beavers in deep freshwater bodies with slow flow. These are forest lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, and the banks of reservoirs. The main condition is rich coastal vegetation of soft rocks, shrubs and grass. If the landscape is not quite suitable, then the beaver works to change the environment, like a builder.
Once upon a time, animals were distributed throughout Europe and Asia, except Kamchatka and Sakhalin. But extermination and economic activity led to the extinction of most beavers. The restoration work lasts until today, beavers settle into bodies of water suitable for habitation.
The character and lifestyle of the beaver
Beavers are semi-aquatic animals that feel more confident in water, swim and dive well, and on land beaver It has view clumsy animal.
Animal activity increases towards dusk and with the onset of night. In the summer they can work 12 hours. Only in winter, in severe frosts, do they not leave their secluded dwellings. Burrows or so-called huts are places where beaver families live.
The entrances to the burrows are hidden by water and lead through complex labyrinths of coastal areas. Emergency exits ensure the safety of animals. The living chamber is more than a meter in size and approximately 50 cm high, and is always located above the water level.
A beaver can build dams that can easily support a person's weight.
A special canopy protects the place on the river where the hole is located from winter freezing. The foresight of beavers is akin to the professionalism of designers. The construction of huts is carried out on flat areas or low banks. These are cone-shaped structures up to 3 m high made of brushwood, silt and clay.
The inside is spacious, up to 12 m in diameter. At the top there is a hole for air, and at the bottom there are holes for immersion in water. In winter, it stays warm inside, there is no ice, and beavers can dive into the pond. Steam above the hut on a frosty day is a sign of habitation.
For supporting the required level water and preservation of huts and burrows, beavers build well-known dams, or dams from tree trunks, brushwood and silt. Even heavy stones up to 18 kg are found to strengthen the building.
The frame of the dam is usually a fallen tree, which is overgrown building materials up to 30 m in length, up to 2 m in height, and up to 6 m in width. The structure can easily support the weight of any person.
The photo shows a beaver hole
Construction time takes approximately 2-3 weeks. Then the beavers carefully monitor the safety of the constructed object and carry out “repairs” as necessary. They work in families, distributing responsibilities as if as a result of precise and error-free planning.
Rodents can easily cope with trees up to 7-8 cm in diameter in 5 minutes, gnawing the trunks at the base. It copes with larger trees, up to 40 cm in diameter, overnight. Cutting into pieces and towing to a dwelling or dam are carried out in an organized and uninterrupted manner.
What animals are beavers? on their farm, as can be seen from their habitat area. Not only the dwellings, but also the channels through which building materials and feed are rafted do not contain excrement or food debris.
Paths, houses, areas for construction - everything is interconnected and tidied up. A special landscape is created, which is called beaver. Animals communicate using special scent marks, sounds similar to whistling, and tail strikes.
A tap on the water is an alarm signal and a command to hide under water. The main enemies in nature are brown ones. But humans have caused enormous damage to the beaver population.
Beaver is an animal- a hard worker and connoisseur of a quiet family way of life. IN free time take care of the fur coat, lubricating it with secretions from the sebaceous glands, protecting it from getting wet.
Beaver nutrition
The diet of beavers is based on plant foods: bark and shoots of soft trees, summer period a significant part is made up herbaceous plants.
The volume of food per day should average up to 1/5 of the animal’s weight. The rodent's strong teeth allow it to cope with various woody foods. They mainly prefer willow, birch, aspen, poplar, and less often linden and bird cherry. They love acorns, plant buds, bark and leaves.
In the fall, beavers store wood food for the winter. Warehouses are located in places under overhanging banks with special storage of supplies. This will allow you to find unfrozen willow, aspen or birch trunks under the ice in winter.
Reserve volumes can be huge: up to 70 cubic meters. for one beaver family. Special bacteria help digestion process cellulose, and beavers' incisors grow throughout their lives.
Reproduction and lifespan
Females dominate the beaver family and are larger in size. Marriage time takes place in winter time, from mid-January to February.
Pictured is a baby beaver
Gestation of the cubs lasts until May; they are born from 1 to 6, weighing approximately 0.5 kg. A brood most often contains 2-4 cubs. Beaver cubs, sighted and covered with fur, after 2 days are already swimming under the care of their mother.
The babies are surrounded by care; milk feeding lasts up to 20 days, and then they gradually switch to plant foods. For 2 years, the young live in the parental circle, and after reaching sexual maturity, their own colony and new settlement are created. Life in nature river beaver lasts 12-17 years, and in captivity it doubles.
Monogamous pairs of beavers with offspring of the first and second years of life form family groups in a populated area with its own habitat structure. Their resettlement, as a rule, has a positive impact on ecological state environment.
There are cases when beaver buildings caused erosion of roads or railroad tracks. But more often animal world beaver enriched with clean reservoirs and inhabited by fish, birds, and forest inhabitants.
Beavers are a genus of mammals of the rodent order, which includes two species: the common beaver (Castor fiber), a resident Atlantic coast to the Baikal region and Mongolia, and Canadian beaver(Castor canadensis), found in North America.
The beaver's body weight is about 30 kg, the body length reaches 1-1.5 m, females are usually slightly larger in size than males. The rodent has a blunt muzzle, small ears, short, strong legs with powerful claws. The beaver's fur consists of two layers: on top there are hard red-brown guard hairs, and underneath there is a thick gray undercoat that protects the beaver from hypothermia. The tail is bare, black, flattened and wide, covered with scales. Near the base of the tail are two glands that produce an odorous substance known as “beaver squirt.”
Beavers are herbivorous rodents. Their diet includes bark and shoots of trees (aspen, willow, poplar, birch), various herbaceous plants (water lily, egg capsule, iris, cattail, reed). They can also feed on hazel, linden, elm, and bird cherry. They readily eat acorns. Large teeth and a strong bite help beavers to eat fairly solid plant foods, and the microflora of their intestinal tract digests cellulose foods well.
Daily allowance required amount food reaches 20% of a beaver's weight.
In the summer, the diet of beavers is dominated by grassy food; in the fall, rodents actively prepare woody food for the winter. Each family stores 60-70 m3 of wood. Beavers leave their reserves in the water, where they retain their food quality until the end of winter.
Until the twentieth century, beavers were very widespread, but due to their mass extermination, their habitat in Lately decreased significantly. The common beaver is found in Europe, Russia, China and Mongolia. Its closest relative, the Canadian beaver, lives in North America.
Common Beaver Species
The body length is 1-1.3 m, height is about 35.5 cm, weight is in the range of 30-32 kg. The body is squat, the paws are shortened with five fingers, the hind legs are stronger than the front ones. Swimming membranes are located between the fingers. The claws are strong and flat. The tail is paddle-shaped, flat, reaches 30 cm in length and 10-13 cm in width. The tail is pubescent only at the base, the rest of its surface is covered with horny scutes. The eyes are small, the ears are wide, short, and slightly protrude above the fur. Under water, the ears and nostrils close, and the eyes have special nictitating membranes. The common beaver has beautiful fur made up of coarse guard hairs and a thick, silky undercoat. The coat color ranges from light chestnut to dark brown, sometimes black. The tail and paws are black. Molting occurs once a year.
In the anal area there are paired glands, wen and the so-called “beaver stream”, the smell of which is a guide for other beavers, as it informs about the border of the family’s territory.
The common beaver is distributed in Europe (Scandinavian countries, France, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine), Russia, Mongolia and China.
Body length 90-117 cm; weight about 32 kg. The body is round, the chest is wide, the head is short with large dark ears and bulging eyes. The coat color is reddish or blackish brown. Tail length 20-25 cm, width 13-15 cm, oval shape, pointed end, surface covered with black horny scutes.
The species is distributed in North America, Alaska, Canada, USA, and Mexico. It was introduced to the Scandinavian countries and Russia.
Sexual dimorphism in beavers is weakly expressed, females are slightly larger in size than males.
Beavers usually live along the banks of forest rivers, streams and lakes. They do not live on wide and fast rivers, as well as reservoirs that freeze to the bottom in winter. For these rodents, tree and shrub vegetation along the banks of reservoirs and an abundance of aquatic and coastal herbaceous vegetation are important. In suitable places, they build dams from fallen trees, construct canals, and use them to float logs to the dam.
Beavers have two types of housing: a burrow and a hut. The huts look like floating islands made of a mixture of brushwood and mud, their height is 1-3 meters, their diameter is up to 10 m, the entrance is located under water. Beavers spend the night in such huts, store food for the winter, and hide from predators.
Beavers dig burrows on steep and steep banks; these are complex labyrinths with 4-5 entrances. The walls and ceiling are leveled and compacted. Inside, at a depth of up to 1 m, a living chamber is arranged up to 1 width and height 40-50 cm. The floor is located 20 cm above the water level.
Beavers are excellent swimmers and divers; they can stay underwater for 10-15 minutes and swim up to 750 m during this time.
Beavers live either alone or in families of 5-8 individuals. The same family has occupied their plot for many years. Beavers do not walk 200 m from water. Rodents mark the boundaries of their territory with a beaver stream.
The main periods of beaver activity are night and twilight.
Beavers are monogamous rodents. Breeding occurs once a year. The mating season begins in mid-January and lasts until the end of February. Pregnancy lasts 105-107 days. One litter contains 1-6 cubs, which are born in April-May. Babies are born semi-sighted, well-furred, and their weight is approximately 0.45 kg. After a few days they can already swim. The female teaches them to swim, pushing them out of the hut into the underwater corridor. At 3-4 weeks, the beaver cubs begin to eat leaves and stems of grass, and until 3 months the mother feeds them with milk. The young live with their parents until they are two years old, after which they reach puberty and begin an independent life.
In captivity, the lifespan of beavers is up to 35 years, in the wild it is 10-17 years.
Natural enemies
Natural enemies of the river beaver are wolves, brown bears and foxes, but the most big damage The population of this species is brought about by humans, exterminating beavers for their valuable fur and meat.
- The common beaver is the largest rodent in Europe and the second largest in the world after.
- The word "beaver" comes from an Indo-European language and is an incomplete duplication of the name for the color brown.
- Until the middle of the 20th century, beaver fur was very popular in America, Europe and Russia, which is why the population of these animals decreased noticeably: there were 6-8 isolated populations of 1200 individuals left. To preserve the species, beaver hunting was prohibited. Currently, the common beaver has a minimal risk status, and the main threats to it are land reclamation activities, water pollution and hydroelectric power plants.
- In addition to beautiful and durable fur, beavers are a source of beaver stream, which is used in perfumery and medicine. Beaver meat is also edible, but may contain salmonellosis pathogens. According to church canons, it is considered fasting.
- In 2006, a beaver sculpture was unveiled in the city of Bobruisk (Belarus). There are also sculptures of this rodent in the Alpine Zoo (Innsbruck, Austria).
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. 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 is felled by a beaver in 5 minutes, a tree with a diameter of 40 cm is 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. At the very cold weather the hut maintains a positive temperature 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 cold weather sets in .
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 starts leaking somewhere 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, beavers were completely exterminated in many European countries, and the total number of beavers in Eurasia was only 1,200 individuals. In the 20th century, largely due to active work After the restoration of 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 for beaver breeding. Bobrov from Voronezh Nature Reserve 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 beavers moved to Northwestern 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 common beaver is a large semi-aquatic animal, a representative of the order Rodents. The common beaver is also called the river beaver. The beast amazes with his skills: he is an experienced builder, an excellent owner and exemplary family man. The common beaver is the second largest rodent in the world. In this article you will find a description and photo of the common beaver and learn a lot of new and interesting things about these rodents.
Before I tell you what beavers look like, I would like to clarify a little. Very often when people use the words beaver and beaver, they mean the same thing - that is, the rodent itself. But these two words have different meanings. So, beaver is the name of the animal, and its fur is called beaver.
So what do beavers look like? A common beaver looks like large rodent. The animal’s body length reaches 1 meter, height – up to 35 cm, with a body weight of 32 kg. The beaver's tail is up to 30 cm long and up to 13 cm wide. Amazing fact of these rodents is that the females are larger than the males.
The common beaver has short legs and a squat body. The hind legs of the river beaver are much stronger than the front ones. Second finger hind legs has a claw that is forked - the beaver combs its fur with it like a comb. These animals carefully look after their “fur coat”.
On its paws the rodent has swimming membranes and strong thickened claws. Beavers look quite unusual because of their amazing tail. The beaver's tail resembles an oar, it is flat, without hair and covered with horny scales.
The common beaver has a large head with a narrow muzzle, small eyes and prominent incisors at the front. A beaver's teeth are special; they are covered with durable enamel, grow throughout their lives and sharpen themselves. The common beaver has small and short ears that are barely visible in the thick fur. Despite this, the animal has excellent hearing.
Beavers look like real fur barons, because they have beautiful shiny fur. Beaver fur has two layers, which keeps this rodent warm and dry in cold winters. The first layer of beaver fur consists of coarse long hair, and the second is a very thick silky undercoat. The river beaver is also protected from the cold by the presence of a layer of fat under its skin.
Beavers look inconspicuous due to their coloring. The fur of the common beaver is light chestnut or dark brown, sometimes even black. The tail and limbs of the animal are black. The tail of the common beaver has wen and special glands.
The odorous substance produced by the tail glands of rodents is called beaver squirt. And the secret of the wen contains all the information about the owner, carries information about his age and gender. A guide to other beavers about the boundaries of the settlement territory is the smell of the beaver stream, which is unique for each individual. IN wildlife The common beaver lives on average 15 years.
Beavers live in Europe (Scandinavian countries), France (lower Rhone River), Germany (Elbe River basin) and Poland (Vistula River basin). Beavers are also found in forest and forest-steppe zones of the European part of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.
In Russia, the beaver lives in the Northern Trans-Urals. Beavers live scatteredly in the upper reaches of the Yenisei River, in Kuzbass ( Kemerovo region), in the Baikal region, in the Khabarovsk Territory, in Kamchatka, in the Tomsk region. In addition, beavers are found in Mongolia and Northwestern China.
Beavers live with full equipment to lead a semi-aquatic lifestyle. Their ear openings and nostrils close underwater. And special nictitating membranes cover their eyes, which allows them to see well in the water. Oral cavity designed so that water does not get into it while the animal is working under water. The function of a rudder in the water is performed by the beaver's tail.
Beavers live, preferring to inhabit the banks of calm rivers and lakes, ponds and reservoirs. They avoid fast and wide rivers, as well as reservoirs that freeze to the bottom in winter. For these rodents, the presence of soft deciduous trees and the presence of aquatic, herbaceous and shrub vegetation in coastal areas and along the banks of the reservoir.
Beavers dive and swim well. Thanks to their large lungs, they can stay underwater for up to 15 minutes and swim up to 750 meters during this time. Therefore, beavers feel more confident in water than on land.
Beavers live in families (up to 8 individuals) or alone. The family consists of a married couple and young beavers (broods over the last two years). The same plot can be used by a family for many generations. Small bodies of water are occupied by single beavers or one family. Larger reservoirs accommodate several families, and the length of each individual family plot along the shore ranges from 300 meters to 3 km. Beavers live near water and do not move away from coastline more than 200 meters.
The length of the family plot depends on the abundance of food. In places where vegetation is abundant, the areas of these animals can border each other and even intersect. Beavers mark the boundaries of their territories. Beavers communicate using scent marks. Beavers communicate with each other using poses, striking the water with their tails, and whistling-like calls. In case of danger, the beaver loudly slaps its tail on the water and dives. This clap gives an alarm to all beavers within earshot.
At night and at dusk, beavers are active. In summer, they leave their homes at dusk and work until dawn. In the fall, beavers prepare for winter and begin to prepare food. The working day increases to 10 hours. In winter, beavers live less actively, their labor activity decreases and moves during daylight hours. Beavers spend the winter, almost never appearing on the surface, but they do not hibernate. At temperatures below −20 °C, the beaver spends the winter surrounded by its family, remaining in its warm home.
Beavers are building new house In the end of August. Lonely beavers do not build buildings, but family beavers work very hard. What is the name of a beaver's home? In one beaver settlement there are two types of dwellings. In the first case, the beaver's home is called a burrow. Beavers live in burrows; they dig them in steep, steep banks. For safety, the entrance to such a beaver's home is always under water. Beaver burrows are a kind of labyrinth that has 4 entrances. The walls and ceiling of the beaver's hole are carefully leveled.
The beaver's living house inside the hole is located at a depth of up to 1 meter and a width of just over a meter, with a height of 50 cm. The floor is always above the water level. If the water in the river rises, the beaver raises the floor by scraping soil from the ceiling. All construction activities of beavers are dictated by their desire for safety and comfort. Where it is impossible to dig holes, houses are built directly on the water in the shallow part of the reservoir. Such a beaver’s dwelling is called a hut, and beavers build these floating houses according to the principle of constructing a dam.
Beaver huts look like a cone-shaped island protruding from the water. The height of such a beaver house reaches 3 meters and a diameter of up to 12 meters; the entrance to the house is under water. A beaver lodge is built from a pile of brushwood, which is held together by silt and earth. Beavers carefully coat the walls of their homes with silt and clay. Thus, the beaver's hut turns into a strong fortress, and air enters through the hole in the ceiling.
Inside the beaver lodge there are passages into the water and a platform that is located above the water level. When frosts come, beavers apply additional new layer clay onto the hut using the front paws. In winter, the beaver huts maintain above-zero temperatures, the water in the passages is not covered with a crust of ice, and the beavers calmly go under the ice of the reservoir. In winter, there is steam above the inhabited beaver lodges. Beavers are real clean people; they keep their homes clean, never littering them.
In bodies of water where the water level is variable, beavers build dams or ponds. Why do beavers build dams? The beaver dam allows them to increase and maintain the water level in the reservoir, and regulate it so that the entrances to the lodges do not dry out. The dam ensures the safety and security of the beaver lodge. Beavers build dams from branches, brushwood and tree trunks, holding them together with clay, silt and other materials. If there are stones at the bottom, they are also used in construction.
Beavers build dams in areas where trees grow closer to the shore. The construction of a beaver dam begins with the beavers diving and vertically sticking trunks into the bottom, strengthening the gaps with branches and filling the voids with silt, clay, and stones. If there is a tree that has fallen into the river, it often serves as a supporting frame. Beavers gradually cover it on all sides with building materials. Often branches in beaver dams take root, which gives additional strength to the structure.
A beaver dam usually reaches a length of up to 30 meters, a width of up to 6 meters, and a height of usually 2 meters, but sometimes up to 4 meters. The beaver dam is a strong structure and can easily support the weight of a person. On average, it takes a beaver family about a month to build a dam. Beavers carefully ensure that the dam remains intact and immediately repair it if damage is detected.
To build a beaver dam and store food, beavers cut down trees. They gnaw them at the base, chew off branches, and divide the trunk into parts. A beaver cuts down a tree with a diameter of 7 cm in 5 minutes. A tree 40 cm in diameter is felled by a beaver and processed overnight, so that in the morning only a pointed stump and a pile of shavings remain.
The trunk of a tree, which the beaver has already worked on, but has not yet knocked down, takes on a characteristic “hourglass” shape. Some of the branches of the fallen tree are eaten by beavers on the spot. They demolish the rest or float them across the water to the construction site of the dam or their house.
Every year, the well-trodden beaver routes gradually fill with water, forming beaver channels. Animals float wood food along them. The length of such channels can reach hundreds of meters. Beavers always keep their canals clean.
An area that has been transformed by beaver activity is called a beaver landscape. With your ability to change natural landscape they are second only to man. Beavers are one of the most unique animals because they are able to learn and improve their skills throughout their lives.
Beavers are vegetarians; they are exclusively herbivores. Beavers feed on tree bark and shoots. Beavers love birch, willow, aspen and poplar. Beavers also eat various herbaceous plants: water lilies, irises, cattails, reeds, and this list includes many items.
A large number of softwood trees are a necessary condition their habitat. Hazel, linden, elm, bird cherry and some other trees are not so important and significant in their diet. They usually do not eat alder and oak, but use them for buildings. But the beaver eats acorns willingly. Large teeth allow beavers to easily cope with tree food. Beavers typically feed on only a few tree species.
In summer, the proportion of grassy food that the beaver eats increases. In the fall, economic beavers begin to prepare woody food for the winter. Therefore, in winter, beavers feed on their reserves. Beavers put them in water, where they retain their nutritional qualities all winter.
The volume of supplies for a family can be very huge. To prevent food from freezing into the ice, beavers usually heat it below the water level. Therefore, even when the reservoir is covered with ice, food will remain available to the animals and the family will be provided with everything they need.
Baby beavers
Beavers are monogamous, once united, they live together all their lives and remain true friend to a friend. The female dominates the family. Beavers become capable of reproduction at 2 years of age. Offspring are born once a year. The mating season lasts from mid-January to the end of February. The duration of pregnancy is 3.5 months.
In April-May, from 2 to 6 beaver cubs are born. Beaver cubs are born sighted, well covered with fur, and weigh on average 0.5 kg. After 2 days, beaver cubs can already swim. Beavers take care of their young.
At the age of 1 month, beaver cubs switch to a plant diet, but the mother continues to feed on milk for up to 3 months. Grown-up beavers usually do not leave their parents for another 2 years, after which the young animals move out.
How is a beaver useful and what are beavers for?
Beavers are useful because their appearance in rivers has a beneficial effect on ecological system. The beaver is especially useful in building its dams. Various living creatures and waterfowl settle in them, bringing fish eggs on their legs, and fish appear in the reservoir. Beavers are needed because their dams help purify water, they retain silt and reduce turbidity.
Beavers are peaceful animals, but they also have enemies in nature - brown bears, wolves and foxes. But the main threat to beavers is humans. As a result of hunting, the common beaver was on the verge of extinction by the beginning of the 20th century. Beavers are hunted for their fur. In addition, they produce a beaver stream, which is used in perfumery and medicine.
To preserve this valuable animal, effective measures were taken to protect and restore its numbers. By the beginning of the 21st century, the beaver population had recovered. Now the common beaver has a minimum risk status in the International Red Book. Currently, the main threat to it is water pollution and the construction of hydroelectric power plants.
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