All the most interesting things about beavers! The message about beavers is brief.

Beavers are considered ordinary rodents, but they are able to build amazing dams - it is this ability that sets beavers apart from other representatives of the animal world. Since ancient times, beavers have been associated with many folk rituals and customs.

For example, representatives catholic church for a long time claimed that beavers are fish! Therefore, their meat was considered lean and beaver dishes were equated with fish during strict fasting. Read our article for many other interesting facts about beavers.

Some ancient customs cause bewilderment and misunderstanding of what beavers did to people and why this happened to them. For example, in Canada they literally paid with beavers: you could go to any store and buy the desired product (4 spoons, boots or a gallon of brandy) for one beaver skin.

Another thing was the Orthodox, who, unlike Catholics, considered beavers unsuitable for food. In the 14th century, clergy during confession always asked whether the person who came had eaten horse meat or beaver meat. According to the “Russian Truth”, beavers were considered the property of the state, therefore for their theft ordinary people were fined.

• It was because of these animals that the Anglo-French war began for the right to own Canada, which was famous for its many beaver lands.
• Before hunting, the Indians always turned to the Great Beaver (beaver leader) with a request for help in getting food.

Beavers live on average 15-17 years, the weight of a male is equal to the weight of a seven-year-old child. In zoos, beavers can live up to 40 years in the absence of any danger to the life of the individual.

It is very stupid to think that beavers eat fish - they are real vegetarians. Their diet consists of tree bark. Beavers have so much strong teeth that one individual is independently capable of felling a tree within a radius of 20 centimeters in 12 hours. According to statistics, beavers often die from falling tree trunks.

A short message about the beaver will tell you what they eat, where they live and how these animals build. A story about beavers for children can be supplemented with interesting facts.

Brief message about beavers

The beaver is a fairly large rodent mammal, known as a dam builder. Distributed in North America and Eurasia on the banks of forest rivers, streams and lakes. They build dams and dams from fallen trees, causing the water level in the dams they create to rise.

Description of the beaver for children

The beaver is a rather large rodent, its weight can reach up to 32 kilograms. Body length is about a meter. He has valuable fur, however, there is no fur on his tail, instead there are scales. When a rodent swims, its fur does not get wet, and it does not freeze in the water. The tail is interestingly designed; it helps the beaver to “steer.”

The animal can spend up to fifteen minutes under water. It has swimming membranes on its paws, thanks to which the animal reaches speeds of up to ten kilometers per hour. There are also sharp claws on the front paws. The rodent's teeth, especially the four front incisors, are sharp; they are real tools and act like a saw.

The beaver family consists of several individuals, about five in total, but they can also live alone. In the fall, beavers work a lot, and in the summer - much less. In winter, they do not leave their homes at all, especially when it is cold.

Beaver lifespan- about 20 years in captivity, in nature - about 15 years.

What do beavers eat?

Beavers feed on the bark and young branches of trees that are specially felled for this purpose, gnawing at the base. But for the winter we have to make preparations: animals hide tree bark under water.

Beavers love to build. As soon as they like the area somewhere, they immediately begin to build. And definitely near water. The fact is that animals feel calm and safer in water than on land.

These water-loving animals can build burrows and huts. In both constructive option The exit from the home is under water.

The beaver liked the steep bank - he digs a hole. And if the coast is flat, then the animal builds a hut from branches, sticks, twigs; the animal uses clay and silt as a cementing mortar for the structure.

2. The beaver is one of the largest rodents; in Europe it ranks first in this indicator, and in the world - second.

3. Scientists who excavated the remains of a beaver, left over from ancient times, were amazed. It was the size of a man. The height of the find was 165 centimeters, and the weight was 60 kilograms.

4. The word “beaver” itself comes from the Proto-Indo-European language. Zoologists believe that the rodent first appeared in Asia; it was there that a huge number of fossilized remains of beavers dating back to the Eocene were found.

5. Today there are 2 types of beavers: European and Canadian.

Common beaver

6 Beavers have a squat body and short legs. There are membranes between the toes designed to improve swimming. The beaver has small eyes and short ears. The tail is flat and resembles an oar.

7. Their color is mostly brown, but some individuals can be black.

8.Weight is about 20-30 kg, body length is about 1 meter. Beavers have a third eyelid to better navigate the water while swimming.

9. Many people think that the tail helps beavers swim, but this is not true. In water, they use their webbed hind feet for this purpose.

10. The tail serves more to maintain balance. With its help, they also regulate body temperature, and it is also a kind of pantry for storing fat. In addition, they slap them on the ground or water, thereby warning each other of danger.

Beaver Dam

11. Beavers are the only representatives of the animal world from the order of rodents who can build their homes in water - dams.

12. Beavers are very skilled builders: their dams are extremely strong, and at the same time, these animals have an amazing instinct for choosing the most successful places for their construction.

13. The offspring of beavers do not learn the necessary skills from their parents; at the genetic level, they have the ability to build huts and dams.

14. Beaver housing - the hut must be above the water level, but the entrance to it is built under water.

15. On average, a beaver can cut down 100 trees and build 50 dams in its lifetime.

Canadian beaver

16. Dams built by beavers are visible even from space. They show incredible results in their construction. The length of the dams can be 700 meters. But this is not a record yet: a case was recorded when beavers in the state of New Hampshire built a dam that was 1.2 km long.

17. On average, it takes one beaver family a week to build a 10-meter dam.

18. A beaver only needs about 5 minutes to kill a small tree, the thickness of which is 5-7 centimeters. It takes an animal about 8-12 hours to fully process a trunk with a diameter of 40 centimeters.

19. Thanks to powerful jaw muscles and sharp teeth, have great strength bite. They are capable of felling even powerful trees. Beavers most often die from being crushed by trees, which, however, they often cut down themselves.

20. A case was recorded when a beaver was able to fell a thick tree, the diameter of which was about 1 meter.

21. Beavers try not to go far from water and are always within 200 meters of it.

22. Beavers secrete a special liquid that gives the animal’s fur a water-repellent effect.

23. Due to the large size of their lungs and liver, beavers can hold their breath for 15 minutes, which is a record for semi-aquatic mammals. During this time, this small animal can swim a decent distance of 700 meters.

24. When the Indian tribes went hunting, they said a prayer, turning to the Great Beaver.

25. In Latin, the word “beaver” sounds like castor, from which the name castor oil originated.

26. Beavers' teeth are worn down, and to compensate for this process, their incisors grow with quite high speed- approximately 0.5 cm per month.

27. Beavers are vegetarians. The main food of these animals is tree shoots and bark, as well as many plants such as reeds, water lilies, cattails, reeds, and so on. Among beavers there are even gourmets who prefer to eat exclusively willow, aspen and birch.

River or common beaver

28. These animals have transparent eyelids that replace glasses. Thanks to such eyelids, beavers have excellent vision underwater.

29. The ear, nostril and mouth openings of beavers close together, which helps them navigate under water.

30. The beaver has very small ears, but this does not prevent him from having excellent hearing.

31. The beaver can be found in European heraldry: the animal appears on Norwegian, German, Polish, Swiss, French, and Russian coats of arms.

32. Beaver lands have become main reason Canadian War.

33. In Canada, beaver pelts were used instead of money.

34. Beaver skin is considered more valuable than fox skin.

35.V Ancient Rus' in case of theft of a beaver, a heavy fine was imposed on the thief.

Beavers in the zoo

36. In the natural environment for beavers, they can live up to about 15 years; in zoos you can sometimes find centenarians whose age is 40 years. He is considered very elderly for animals.

37. They are most active at night and at dusk.

38. Matriarchy reigns in the beaver family, that is, the head of the family is exclusively the female.

39. It’s always warm in the beaver’s hut, even in 30-degree frosts.

40. Now in Russia there are approximately 340 thousand beavers.

41. An image of a beaver can be seen on banknotes and coins of many countries. For example, in Canada, a beaver is depicted on the 5-cent coin of 1937, and it can also be seen on the front side of the 3-ruble bill of 1992.

42. The eyesight of this animal is very weak, so it is compensated by a good sense of touch and hearing.

43. Newborn beavers weigh 500 grams. Beaver cubs are born half-blind in the amount of 3-6 pieces.

44. When a beaver reaches the age of 2 years, it leaves its family and begins to live an independent life.

45. The range of one beaver family reaches about 3 km². The beaver always marks the boundaries of its territory with an odorous secretion called beaver stream. This substance is today the most important component used in the perfume industry.

The city of Bobruisk: monuments to beavers

46. ​​In the city of Bobruisk, located on the territory of Belarus, you can see 2 monuments dedicated to beavers.

47. Beavers today live throughout Europe and Asia, found mainly in countries such as France, Germany, Russia, Mongolia and China.

Beavers in the Voronezh Nature Reserve

48. Despite the fact that beavers are large rodents, they are significantly inferior in weight to animals from South America capybaras - capybaras.

49. The trunk of a tree that has been gnawed by a beaver is endowed with the shape “ hourglass».

50. There are still heated discussions among philologists about what is the correct name for a rodent with valuable fur. Today the animal can be called both “beaver” and “beaver”.

Beavers are one of the largest rodents on the planet. In nature, there are 2 types of animals: the common beaver, which is spread throughout Eurasia, and the Canadian beaver, which lives in North America.
They are very similar in appearance and habits, but scientists have recently discovered that the species differ at the genetic level: the common beaver has 48 chromosomes, while the Canadian beaver has 40. This difference makes it impossible to cross them.

What does a common beaver look like?

This rodent grows up to 1 meter in length, excluding the length of the tail, which is 0.4-0.5 meters. An adult young beaver weighs on average 30-32 kg, and an old one can weigh up to 45 kg, since these animals grow throughout their lives.

Large head with narrow muzzle, small eyes and ears, 2 large protruding incisors in front. The fur of an animal is most often brown, but there are dark red, chestnut and even black beavers. Long, shiny, coarse hair on top and a soft, delicate, thick undercoat provide this rodent with dryness and warmth even in harsh winters. Beavers carefully take care of their “fur coat” - they comb it with the forked claw of their hind paws, while simultaneously lubricating it with a special fatty secretion, thanks to which the fur does not get wet in water. A thick layer of subcutaneous fat also protects from the cold.

Five-toed paws have special membranes between the toes and strong thickened claws.

The beaver has an amazing tail - flat, like an oar, without hair, covered with horny scales with a horny “keel” along the midline.

Beavers have special teeth - self-sharpening.

Beaver lifestyle and nutrition

Beavers are semi-aquatic rodents. On land they are clumsy and slow, but in water they are fast, agile swimmers, excellent divers. They are perfectly adapted to water: webbed paws, a flat paddle tail, transparent eyelids that protect the eyes and allow excellent vision under water, labial growths behind the main incisors allow them to sharpen wood in water, while protecting the oral cavity. They can stay underwater for up to 15 minutes, sometimes swimming up to 1 km.

These animals are strict vegetarians. They feed on wood, preferring soft species - aspen, alder, willow, birch. They also eat leaves, branches, young shoots, sedge, water lilies, and water lilies.

They are very peaceful, prefer to avoid danger, but there are cases of open attack, then the enemy has a hard time - beavers strong fighters, if they have already entered into a fight (which happens extremely rarely), then they fight fiercely and bravely.

Beavers lead twilight-night image life. In the wild they live up to 20-25 years, in captivity - up to 35 years.

Beaver family

Matriarchy reigns in the beaver family. The female is the main one, she is also outwardly larger than the male. Once united, they remain true friend friend throughout your life. Scientists studying the habits of beavers have come to the conclusion that even if one of the partners dies, the second often does not acquire a pair again, but remains alone forever.

Mating occurs in water (often under ice) in February. After 3.5 months, from 2 to 6 fur-covered cubs weighing 500 grams are born. Within a few days they can swim, after a couple of weeks they begin to feed on leaves and thin stems, although they do not receive mother’s milk until 3 months.

A complete family consists of the main female, the male father, last year's brood and the current year's beaver cubs. The young leave the family only at 3 years of age. They live very friendly, do not fight for food, and build huts and dams together.

Do beavers have higher education in hydraulic engineering?

Throughout their lives, they build dams, choosing the right places, using precise technologies and accurate calculations. Scientists are still amazed at such abilities today. It's still not clear how beavers measure distance or weight building material, but they never make mistakes. Their dams are so strong that they can support the weight of a horse. Beavers strictly monitor the integrity of their structures, immediately repairing damage.

For construction, not only the trunks of trees felled by beavers are used (they have characteristic shape hourglass), but also branches, stones, silt, clay.

For housing, they dig holes - these are complex labyrinths, or build huts - above-water structures from branches held together with silt and clay. The entrance to the home is always located under water.

Interestingly, “tenants” often settle in the huts and coexist peacefully with the beaver family. This is a water snake water vole, muskrat.

Beavers are amazingly clean animals. They always keep their home clean, rest outside the house, and take leftover food outside.

The territory that beavers use for the construction of dams and lodges has been in the sole use of one family for many decades. Beavers mark “their” places with beaver stream - a dark, odorous oily liquid. Interestingly, this secret is highly valued by perfumers, using it to give special durability to perfumes.

Today beavers are listed in the Red Book. Active work is underway to restore the almost destroyed valuable fur and beaver secretion of the population.

Beaver Information Posted by Savannah

The largest rodent in Europe and the second largest in the world after the capybara, the beaver is considered a semi-aquatic mammal. That is, it is considered terrestrial, but lives and feeds in the presence of aquatic environment. There are two types of beavers - European and Canadian. There are many interesting facts about these rodents.

Appearance

Interesting facts about beavers - appearance. Transparent eyelids allow the animal to see while underwater.

An adult beaver weighs about 20 kilograms (this is the average value; weight ranges from 15 to 30 kilograms). This is how much a person weighs at the age of eight.

In an underwater position, the openings of the ears, nose and mouth close, preventing water from entering these organs. Since the mouth is protected in a special way, the beaver can gnaw branches even in a submerged position.

Lungs and liver large sizes, this makes it possible to stay under water for a long time - the rodent can hold its breath for a quarter of an hour.

Special glands secrete a water-repellent compound that beavers use to lubricate their fur.

They have small ears, but this does not interfere with their keen hearing, which they use to avoid danger.

Behavior

Beaver - interesting facts about behavior. Animals swim quickly on water - they can swim about seven hundred meters in a quarter of an hour.

Beavers can gnaw and knock down large trees, up to one meter in diameter. It gnaws through a tree with a diameter of five centimeters in five minutes.

Animals can be active during daylight and dark, but are more active at night.

Life expectancy is about 13 years in the wild, in captivity - up to 40 years.

The house rises above the water, but the entrance leads through the water. The beaver's roof is very strong, so it is very difficult for a predator to tear it apart, despite the fact that it is not protected by the water column.

To form the right size pond, beavers are building dams. The resulting lakes can occupy a significant area.

Despite the fact that beavers live in an environment where there may be a lot of fish, they do not eat it, or meat in general, because the animals are herbivores.

Rodents mark their territory with a secretion with a strong odor, which is produced by musk glands.

Beavers love to eat wood, their favorite foods being aspen, poplar and willow.

In winter they hibernate, but they prepare for it thoroughly, using several tens of cubic meters of wood to build their homes. In winter, the temperature in the house is above zero, even if outside the walls made of branches it is thirty degrees below zero.

Due to the fact that the beaver must constantly hold onto the tree with its paws, and also help with its “handles” in the construction of dams and dwellings, they have learned to walk, if necessary, on two hind legs.

The teeth never become dull because they are sharpened by the trees.

In people's lives

Many settlements named after beavers, they can be used to determine the area of ​​their settlement in the past. After all, now these animals have been driven out of many areas. The most famous “beaver” city is Bobruisk in Belarus, where two monuments were erected in honor of aquatic rodents.

Fur has good warming properties and is also considered very beautiful. This caused a decrease in their number due to extermination by hunters. In Canada, beaver pelts were a kind of money.

The usual length of a beaver dam is 20 - 30 meters. On the Jefferson River in Montana, beavers built a dam 700 meters long. But this is not the limit. In northern Canada, several beaver families built a dam 850 meters long. Rodents began building this structure back in 1975. And we noticed the structure from satellite images, probably from the scale of the reservoir spill.

The dams are so strong that they can be used as a bridge to cross a body of water.

Despite the fact that beavers have disappeared from many areas densely populated by people, there is still a lot of room left to live on the territory of Russia - about a third of a million rodents inhabit the vast expanses of the Russian Federation.

In case of danger, beavers can defend their home from an aggressor and can even attack a person.

When there is danger, the rodent hides under water, alerting others to the presence of a predator.

Beavers are born quite large. From three to six beaver cubs are born, weighing half a kilogram each.

The babies are gestated for just over a hundred days and are born in late spring or early summer.

Despite the fact that at birth the cubs have poor vision, they can swim already at the age of several days, and after three weeks they are already trying to get food on their own.

Beavers live in families, which consist of parents and beaver cubs born within two years. After two years, the older ones become independent and leave their parents, building their own nest.

The dwelling consists of many rooms that are connected by passages; perhaps the multi-room structure is due to the fact that several generations live in one house.