Giant Beaver

Minnesota has adopted it as the state's official fossil.

What’s a giant beaver look like?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mp...competition-to-be-minnesota-state-fossil

AJ you took all the fun out of the question, but I do appreciate the earnest response

Keith

A glimpse of the important legislative action we have to look forward to this session.

On a positive note, the MPR news story, while explaining to it's readers that beaver still exist in Minnesota today (I suppose the average MPR reader may not know that) they correctly refered to the rodent as a "common furbearer".

I would be more interested in the type of bush/tree growth they surely must have found in the same fossil layers. I doubt the large beavers subsisted on anything “pine” which has been the dominant tree in more than 1/3 of Minnesota for eons. Or at least until logging changed things here 160 years ago or so.
It would speak volumes about “climate change”.
I’d think those big beaver had an incredible appetite, serious cropping of nearby food sources. Curious how something that big could stash enough underwater to make the winter.

Osky

Perhaps it was warmer when they existed? Instead of subsisting on bark all winter there was plenty of other plants available year round. A food cache was not needed.

Wait that cant be right. Al gore said global warming was a new thing caused by humans. Sorry my bad. I forgot

From what I have read,the prehistoric beaver although a different species was much like our current species.
A beaver is one animal that continues to grow throughout its entire life.The older they get the bigger they get.The prehistoric species of castoridae had a longer lifespan than our current version.

I happen to know that one of their managers is the son of a trapper.

Danny you get the pair of those beaver into your cab," if they can climb that high", and you may have an over load problem.

Thank you, Keith. And I thought I had secretly watched all the weird videos on YT. See something new every day.
We have a Wynona here, she lives up the valley. I always wondered if she too had a big brown furry animal ya know c’mon man, the thing. Guess I’ll have to go look

I wrote a science fiction story about trapping giant beavers, which was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

A few here may remember it, since I sold copies here as a fund-raiser for the Trapperman Defense Fund.

Take it from me, giant beavers are fun to trap!

Jim

Giant beaver existed at the end of the last ice age as the glaciers retreated from Minnesota. So it would be much colder and drier. They probably eat the same thing beaver eat today just more of it as the glacial till was extremely productive.

They train easily according to 411

Trimming his fingernails

The giant beaver was much bigger than the modern beaver. The average beaver skull today will fit in the mouth of the skull of a giant beaver. They ate much of the same stuff that the muskrats eat today. They could not cut trees like modern beaver can. They also had a rounder tail, much like a muskrat. They went extinct because of food changes and loss of habitat as the environment changed. Their fossils are not exceedingly rare, but they are not common by any means.

I have a rep giant beaver skull and it is huge. If you want to see the real thing, you can go to the Science Museum of Minnesota where they have the entire skeleton of one.

Mark K you killed my joke about my giant beaver cutting wood for me. But that was some good information you provided.

The Berringia Museum in Whitehorse have there statue of giant beaver wrong then. Im fairly sure there beaver has a flat tail and you can see the giant tree cutting choppers. I better send them an e-mail of complaint.

Here is the skull of a modern beaver. Notice how short the top teeth are.



Here is a muskrat. It has longer upper teeth and does not chew trees down.



Now here is the skull of the extinct giant beaver. It has the longer upper teeth like the rat does. Not suited for cutting trees down or apart.



Every giant beaver skull I have ever seen has the same long upper teeth.

Good observation. The molars look more like a muskrat too at least in the pictures you posted.

Either way, gonna need a bigger Connibear.

Osky