Alice White
Beavers are the cutest animals, at least when viewed from the outside. But the huntsmen can tell you about the problems that these animals create – here you have gnawed wooden pillars and dams in the wrong places … On the other hand, it’s people who invaded the beaver’s habitat, and not vice versa, right?
- In the Middle Ages, monks ranked beavers as fish. This was done in order to eat their meat during fasting when fish can be eaten, but, in fact, meat cannot. Beavers, who spend a fair part of their lives in water, seemed to the monks suitable for this role.
- For the winter, the average beaver family harvests up to 60-70 cubic meters of firewood.
- Beavers do not teach their cubs to build huts and dams – they all know how to do this from birth. This is called genetic memory.
- Beavers can hold their breath for 12-15 minutes if they really need to. Although, of course, they try not to do this.
- Cubs of beavers spend at least two years with their parents before they enter independent adult life.
- The beaver is the second-largest rodent in the world.
- Beavers have transparent eyelids. This allows them to navigate underwater.
- The largest beaver dam ever discovered was about seven hundred meters long.
- A tree with a trunk diameter of about 40 centimeters at the base can be knocked down by an average adult beaver in one day.
- Beavers use their unusual tail as a rudder of depth.
- Unlike many other animals, beavers usually live much longer in captivity than in the wild – up to forty years.
- In the Republic of Belarus, in Bobruisk, there are as many as two monuments to the beaver.
- Canadian five-cent coins depict who? That’s right, beaver.
- Matriarchy reigns in the beaver families. The female takes the leading role.
- The entrance to the beaver hut is always underwater, despite the fact that the hut itself is located above its surface.
