It can bite off a large tree in an hour or two, and its sharp teeth are like an efficient saw, which can easily put down trees, and use these trees to build a 700~800 meter dam in the middle of the water flow.
It is a well-known beaver, known as "nature's hydraulic engineer and architect" because of its expertise and love of dam building. Its biggest hobby is to find all kinds of trees and build a dam in the middle of the river, directly cutting off most of the water flow in the river.
Beavers are building dams
Beavers spend almost every part of their day building dams, in a word, either on the way to building dams or on their way to building dams.
So, the question is, how much does the beaver like to build dams? Why spend your life building dams? Let's explore the reasons behind this.
The old rule, first get to know the beaver and learn about this amazing animal.
Beavers carry branches
河狸相关知识
Beaver, also known as beaver, is a mammal of the beaver family, beaver family, beaver genus, which has been listed on the 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and listed in the China National Key Protected Wildlife List.
- The appearance and size of the beaver
The beaver's appearance is relatively round and fat, it looks a little bloated, its neck and limbs are relatively short, a veritable "little short legs", and it looks particularly cute when walking on land.
Except for the tail, the beaver's body surface has thick hair, and most of the hair color is brown and tan. Its peculiar feature is its tail, which is paddle-shaped and has many scales on the surface.
Beavers are nibbling
Beaver is the largest of the continental rodents, generally about 55~100 cm in length and about 15~30 kg in weight, like a juvenile piglet.
- Beaver distribution area and living habits
Beavers are born in cold temperate and subarctic forest river areas, inhabiting river banks, and will also choose some shrubs and river valleys with relatively large water flows as their habitat.
Therefore, the beaver is an amphibian mammal, which can live both in the water and on land, and its habitat range is relatively wide.
There are also beavers on the mainland, called Mengxin beavers, which are found only in the Qinghe, Burgen and Urungu rivers in northeastern Xinjiang, and almost none elsewhere. Therefore, the number of beavers in the mainland is very scarce, and the current number is about 600, which is a key protected wild animal at the mainland level.
Beavers that fend off predators
The beaver is much more peculiar than most animals, it mainly goes out at night, nibbling trees or foraging at night, and rarely goes out during the day, and spends more time recuperating in caves.
Beavers like to eat a variety of plants, such as young leaves, branches, bark, etc., especially in summer, they also eat some herbs, and in general it is not picky eaters.
- Beavers breed offspring
Beavers practice monogamy like wolves, which can be said to be a representative of monomating, when male and female beavers form a family, if they are not harmed by natural enemies, they will continue to maintain the marriage, so beavers are a family as a living unit, and family members live together in a small group.
Beavers scrubbing in the bath
Females breed together in their own homes, feeding their cubs together and having a clear division of labor. The main task of the female beaver is to take care of and feed the offspring at home, focusing on household affairs, just like a full-time mother, while the male beaver spends most of the time outside and busy.
Beavers only breed once a year, and from January to February every year, it is their breeding season, and when they are in April ~ May, they will give birth to cubs, and the gestation period is generally about 3 and a half months.
Beaver pups can swim two or three days after birth, and they live longer than most animals, usually around 12 to 20 years.
The beaver was furious
河狸究竟多喜欢修建大坝
While people are still lamenting the majesty of the Three Gorges Dam, there is also an excellent dam builder among the animals, and it is the beaver. Beavers are nature's infrastructure maniacs, busy building dams almost every day, and are known as "nature's hydraulic engineers".
- Beavers prepare raw materials for the construction of dams
The reason why the beaver can build the dam is that its sharp teeth play an important role. Building dams requires a lot of raw materials, most of which are tree trunks, and to get a thick trunk, you must first find a way to put down the tree, and its teeth are effective tools.
Beavers gnaw big trees
Because the beaver has a weak ability to defend itself on land, it is timid and alert, so it usually chooses to gnaw the tree at night, and in two or three hours it can gnaw down a three-leaf poplar, according to statistics, it is necessary to gnaw down hundreds of such trees a year, which is worthy of being a little master of gnawing trees.
Beavers are very intelligent animals, when they gnaw trees, they do not gnaw all the trunks, but gnaw part of them and keep some of them, and then use the power of the wind to blow the trees off.
The beaver will gnaw the fallen tree again to a small section of moderate length to facilitate its transportation, and then enter the handling process, where the beaver picks up the branch and uses the river power to easily carry it to its destination.
Prepare raw materials
- Beavers began building dams
Beavers have a lot of wisdom when building dams, and they first choose to start where the water flows slowly. First stabilize the thick trunk at the bottom of the water, fix the entire frame, and then fill the large frame with a large number of branches, at which point most of the water flow can be intercepted.
When most of the beaver's work is completed, it will carry out a more detailed and comprehensive processing of the dam construction project. Beavers would find a large number of stones and mud to repair the holes, first plug the leaks with stones and weeds, and finally paste the surface with mud, which silenced the plasterers.
At the end of the project, the beavers will cover the top of the dam with a layer of branches with lush leaves, strengthen the dam again, and finally build the dam in the water. Over time, dams are more or less damaged, so beavers have time to tinker with the dam everywhere and reinforce it.
A dam built by beavers
- The longest beaver dam in the world
According to current records, the world's longest dam built by beavers is located in Canada's national parks.
The length of the dam is 850 meters, which is about 30 years old, and the dam beaver is still under construction, and the length and height will increase.
This 800-meter dam is a very large project for beavers, and it is not easy for humans to build a dam of this length.
河狸为何要辛苦忙碌修建水坝
It's not good for beavers to lie leisurely in caves, so why do they have to build dams day and night? Is it to raise fish in the intercepted ponds? These are clearly not the reasons.
Moving wood
The main reasons why beavers spend time and effort building and improving dams are as follows.
- Create a better living environment for yourself
Beavers are animals that prefer to live in deep water, and the amount of water is crucial for them, so a dam built in the middle of a river can concentrate the water together to form a large pond, and the water level will naturally rise.
When there is enough water, the beaver will build its own nest in the water. The top of the nest is completely covered with branches, only the roof is exposed to the water, the rest is in the water, and the nest has two entrances and exits in the water. From a distance, it looks like a castle in the water, which makes people admire the wisdom of beavers.
Beavers gnaw on branches
Beavers do not hibernate in winter, so they should also eat at this time. In order not to be hungry, beavers will carry back a lot of branches and trunks in autumn and bury them in the soil under the water, so that the branches can retain a certain amount of water, and these foods are the food stored by beavers for winter eating.
- 为了躲避天敌
The beaver's flat tail and webbed hind limbs are the standard for swimmers, so the beaver is very flexible in the water, once on land, the action becomes slow, it is easy to be attacked by natural enemies, and every time it goes out, it is also in a hurry, for fear of being preyed on by natural enemies.
Therefore, when the beaver encounters danger when it moves around, it will quickly swim into the water and drill into the nest to hide. So nests in the water can not only rest for beavers, but also effectively avoid danger.
Beaver's nest in the water
文章结语部分
Dams built by beavers form ponds, forming wetland ecosystems that attract many animals, such as birds, insects and aquatic flora and fauna, to settle down as the ecosystem changes, thus enriching the variety of flora and fauna in the surrounding area.
In order to build dams, beavers will gnaw off many trees, which has caused certain harm to the local environment over time, causing a certain amount of tree population to a certain extent. And when precipitation increases sharply, the dam built by beavers is likely to be washed down, which brings certain harm to the downstream.
The water washed down
In any case, the dam that beavers build in the water is indeed full of wisdom, both in terms of structure and use.