|
|
|
|
|
|
Resources |
|
|
|
The American Beaver
| Article
# : |
20715 |
|
|
Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
|
| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1992 |
1,914 Words |
| Author
: |
Dwight G. Smith
Dwight G. Smith is professor and chairman of the biology
department at Southern Connecticut State University in New
Haven. His latest book, Plants, was released this summer by
Pearson Publishing Company of Boston. |
An animal architect famous for its ability to transform landscapes, the American beaver has a checkered history. The search for beaver--prized by the early European settlers for its prime pelt of thick, chestnut brown fur--stimulated the exploration of the American West and spawned the great fortunes of the John Jacob Astor and the Hudson Bay Company. Beaver were so intensively trapped that by the turn of the century they had been widely extirpated, occurring only in remote and inaccessible locales.
State and federal recovery efforts centering on reintroduction and protective legislation provided the basic framework for the successful reestablishment of beaver in many areas of the East, even in several heavily populated parts of New England.
Beaver are members of the single largest group of mammals, the order Rodentia. Their nearest rodent relatives include the squirrels, chipmunks, gophers, woodchucks, and the sewellel, or mountain beaver of the West. The beaver is the largest rodent in North America and one of the largest in the world, exceeded in size only by the capybara of Central and South America. Its scientific name is Castor Canadensis. Castor is a reference to the castoreum oil, obtained from the beavers' anal scent glands, which is used as a perfume fixative, while Canadensis refers to Canada--the location from which the first specimens were described. The American beaver originally ranged from Alaska and central Canada southward through most of the United States and into northern Mexico. Another species, Castor fiber, occurs in Eurasia, from northern Europe through eastern Siberia.
The beaver is a chunky, heavily
... (1995 of 11061 Characters)
Read Full Article
|
|
