Throughout the autumn, when the water around its primary lodge remains open, the beaver (Castor canadensis) scours the shore near and far in search of those select woody plants on which it relies for food. These items are severed at their base and floated to the area just outside the main entrance to the family’s winter shelter and then pushed underwater as deep as possible.
Like many rodents, the beaver assembles a sizeable cache of food for use in winter when travel conditions become limited. Additionally, this rather rotund mammal develops deposits of fat that help to insulate it against the cold and can be used to fuel its internal energy needs. [Read more…] about Inside A Beaver Lodge in Winter
Castor canadensis is North America’s largest rodent and the second largest in the world — which was driven to near extinction in the Adirondacks around the turn of the last century, but whose reintroduction was astoundingly successful.
Aside from humans, perhaps no other species can modify its surroundings for its own purposes as much as beaver.
Beavers are the great architects of American ponds and streams. The North American beaver competes with the Eurasian beaver to be the 2nd largest rodent in the world, after another semi-aquatic mammal, the South American Capybara.