Several million years ago, beavers were not inferior in size to today's bears. Modern beavers are much smaller than their ancestors. An adult animal reaches a length of up to 1.2 meters and weighs up to 30 kilograms, and some are all 45!
Its tail accounts for a rather large percentage of the total body length, up to 22 centimeters. His head is small, round, with small eyes. The color of the coat is from reddish-brown to almost black. Europe and Asia are the main places where beavers live. For their invaluable talent for the construction of dams and their own homes, the people called them "river engineers."
Exemplary family people
These are unique animals in terms of interpersonal relationships. Beavers are real family men. The male and his female form a family like people: a beaver protects its "wife", protects it. Together they live their whole lives. In the spring, a beaver brings him up to eight beavers. They are born sighted and already covered with wool. A few days after their birth, the beavers begin to swim. The first month of their life they feed on mother’s milk, and after that they are already able to eat like adults.
Since these animals have been engaged in construction activities all their lives (we will talk about this below), it is logical to assume
what beavers eat. Their food is tree branches, their trunks, young shoots, roots of water plants ... In short, what they build from is what they eat.
River engineers
But where do beavers live with their whole friendly family? If you think that these are banal holes, then you are deeply mistaken. We can proudly say that the “furry engineers” live in their own “apartments”! They independently build the so-called island huts, blocking them with a dam. As a building material, beavers use aspen and alder, densely growing along the coast. How does this happen? "Builders" felled trees, gnawing their trunks. They drag bits of wood in their teeth to the place of their future house, sticking them with a sharp end to the bottom, and lay the rest in such a way that they are not carried away by the current.
Next comes a smooth shaft of brushwood, crushed for reliability by stones. Leaves, clay and other garbage complete the process. By the way, people adopted many building techniques precisely from these animals.
Family business
When the beavers grow up, they quickly become involved in the common family business. They help their parents repair the hut, renovate it, and also deal with the life of the beavers - to build a dam so that water does not flood their house. In autumn, where beavers live, fodder is harvested for the winter. In a word, these thrifty and hardworking animals are not bad owners.
Animals in price
Beavers are valuable fur animals. In the XIX century, they almost became extinct due to the fashion for their chic fur. All the noble people of that time preferred to go in beaver hats and fur coats. But, fortunately, the fashion quickly passed, and animal protection laws were enacted . To this day, beavers are protected by law.
Wonderful tail
Firstly, the tail of a beaver is a rudder while swimming.
Secondly, it is a thermostat: if the beaver is hot, then its blood vessels located in the tail begin to expand and pass blood, which, in turn, gives off heat to the water. If the animal is cold, for example, in winter, the vessels in the tail are compressed, allowing the body to retain heat. Thirdly, this is an alarm for his relatives: if they are in danger, then the beaver starts loudly slapping its tail in the water.
Unbelievable, but it is a fact
Once in the United States of America, where beavers of Canadian origin live, a dam was discovered six meters high and 10 meters long! In the state of New Hampshire found a dam with a length of ... 1 kilometer 200 meters! In the dam behind it were 40 beaver houses.