Mammal Web Page

Tyler's Beaver Web Page

Index

Description	Habitat	Range	Food	Life Cycle
Survival	Facts	Human Impact	References	Links


Beaver
Kingdom	Animelia
Phylum	Chordata
Class	Mammalia
Order	Rodentia
Family	Castordae
Genus	Castor
Species	canadenisis

Description

The length of head and body put together is equal to 22 to 27 inches for an adult beaver and can weight: 30 to 68 lbs. The largest rodent in America is the beaver. They are sort of short with a large bottom. The beaver has five toes on every foot. The beaver also has webbed feet for swimming, just like a bat’s membrane. To groom itself the beaver has an extra claw just for that. Beavers have tiny or short ears. Usually the tail is used to help balance the beaver. The beavers have two different kinds of hair, there’s the tough hair or the guard hair. The "under- layer" Is on the inside of the guard hair that keeps the water and coldness out of the beaver.

Habitat

They live most of their lives in the water, or in other words they are aquatic. The beavers can easily travel on land, to reach nearby trees. Then when beavers get on land they waddle and act uncomfortable. The beavers build their lodges themselves. They dam streams by using branches, logs, mud and stones. Lodges are usually between 8 and 12 feet in diameter.

Range

The beavers can live anywhere in North America except for the extremely cold regions like northern Canada because the rivers freeze, and the deserts of the southwest United States, Mexico and Florida because it’s too hot and there are not as many rivers.

Food

The beaver’s favorite food is common bark of hardwoods like, aspen, birch, cherry, willow, maple and alder. They also like aspen and pondweeds for their favorite natural foods. A beaver is a herbivore. They also like fruits like apples. Natural predators are wolves and bobcats.

Life Cycle

Unlike most other animals, beavers are monogamous. Monogamous means they only have one partner. Family groups consist of two adults, many two year olds and the new baby kits. They mate first at about three years old. Groups of babies or litters have 2 to 6 kits born in April and May. Kits can swim when they are only a few hours old. The mother carries the kits in her mouth. The kits are released from the lodge to live independently when they are two. The average lifetime is twenty years or older. This pictures are a representation of the changes that can happen.

Survival

An important factor for survival is that the beavers have a safe and quiet place to roost. It is also important that the beaver has the right amount of trees to eat, dull their teeth and to make their house. If the beaver doesn’t gnaw on wood its teeth can grow up to four feet long in one year. This picture shows how a beaver swims. Predators of the beavers include: wolves and bobcats.

Facts

The beaver has third a membrane over its eye so that it can see under water. The membrane performs as goggles.

The chewing force of a beaver is 176 pounds and the human is only 88 pounds.

Where did the expression "busy as a beaver" originate? It originated from the beavers’ reputation to be busy. For example when a beaver hears water dripping in the lodge he gets right to work fixing it. Then if you try to knock down a beaver home, over the night they will completely rebuild their lodges.

A beaver’s danger call is slapping the tail on water.

Human Impact

The human impact on beavers is large. If humans were to cut down all the trees it would leave nothing left for the beavers. If people don’t want beavers around they would destroy the beavers lodge, but the beavers will rebuild their lodge. If a beaver swallows toxic pollution that's in the water while swimming it will die. Since the beaver is aquatic, the pollution could destroy other elements the beaver needs for survival. Human can have a large impact on what could happen to a beaver's habitat.

For a cool website that the movies came from click below:

http://www.csh.rit.edu/~snell/beaver.html

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for movies of beavers click below.

List of resources and Links:

Description picture: www.fws.gov/r6jcslyr/ wetlands.htm

Habitat picture: www.wildcareoklahoma.org/ photo_gallery.html and also the map www.gpoc.com/histart8.htm

Range picture: www.baxterstateparkauthority.com/ natural/gallery/28.html

Food picture:www.sd4history.com/Unit1/ beginningslesson4.htm

Life cycle picture: www.sciencenorth.on.ca/.../exhibits/ animals/animals1.html

Survival picture: kirtland.cc.mi.us/.../MNZOO/ trip_to_the_minnesota_zoo.htm

Fact pictures: www.wildcareoklahoma.org/ photo_gallery.html

Human impact picture: www.usatoday.com/life/travel/leisure/ 2001/2001-11-01-ski.ht

Life cycle picture: www.digitalfrog.com/resources/ wetgallery.html

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For comments or questions contact Bill Wight at billw@sbschools.net