Giant beaver
From Freepedia
| Giant Beaver Conservation status: Fossil | ||||||||||||||
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| Castoroides ohioensis , |
Giant beavers (Castoroides ohioensis) were a huge species of rodent, with a length up to 2.5 m and an estimated weight of 220 kg. They lived in North America and went extinct during the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago.
Fossils 70,000 years old were found in Toronto, Canada. Its fossils are concentrated around the Midwestern United States in states like Ohio, Minnesota, Indiana, and Wisconsin.
One of the big differences between giant beavers and modern beavers is not just size, but teeth. Modern beavers have chisel-like teeth for gnawing on wood. The teeth of the giant beaver are bigger and broader, growing about 15 centimeters long. Plus the tail of the giant beaver must have been narrower, its hind legs shorter, and its great bulk would have restricted its movement on land very far (then again large squat-legged hippopotamuses can move well on land with little difficulty).
The first giant beaver fossils were discovered in 1837 in a peat bog in Ohio, hence its species name ohioensis. Nothing is known whether or not giant beavers built lodges like modern beavers. In Ohio, there have been claims of a possible giant beaver lodge four feet high and eight feet in diameter, formed from small saplings.
