5 mind-boggling facts about beavers

Beavers can stay underwater for 15 minutes at a time—that’s longer than otters, minks, or even loons. Beavers have water-friendly adaptations, including ears and nostrils that seal shut, webbed hind feet, and transparent inner eyelids that act like goggles.

Beavers mate during winter, usually in the water. It lasts as little as 30 seconds. (That’s okay. They can still cuddle.) After about three-and-a-half months, up to four kits are born. Papa and Mama beaver work together—Ma beaver cares for the young, and Dad does home maintenance, keeping the lodge in shape so babies are snug and safe.

A beaver’s tail is full of fat—if you were to eat a serving of actual beaver tail, it would contain 32 g of fat. (For the record, a Beavertail pastry contains only 17 g of fat.) Beavers store fat in their tails and use it as a reserve to sustain themselves through the winter.

A single beaver fells about 200 trees per year, and can gnaw through trunks as thick as 40 cm in circumference. Trivia alert: the world’s largest beaver dam, in Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta and the Northwest Territories, covers 70,000 sq. m. and is visible—according to satellite images—from space. Hot damn!

A beaver’s teeth are traffic cone orange. Because they never brush them. Oh, JK. It’s because, unlike other rodents, beavers have a protective tooth coating that’s very high in iron. (Other rodents have magnesium in their tooth enamel.) The iron makes beaver teeth incredibly strong, and resistant to the mechanical stress of the constant chewing that they have to do. All rodents gnaw—but beavers gnaw like it’s their job. Because, well, it kind of is.