Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Rodentia > Castoridae > Castor > Castor canadensis

Castor canadensis (american beaver; beaver; castor)

Synonyms:
Language: French; Spanish

Wikipedia Abstract

The North American beaver (Castor canadensis) is one of two extant beaver species. It is native to North America and introduced to Patagonia in South America and some European countries (e.g. Norway). In the United States and Canada, the species is often referred to simply as "beaver", though this causes some confusion because another distantly related rodent, Aplodontia rufa, is often called the "mountain beaver". Other vernacular names, including American beaver and Canadian beaver, distinguish this species from the other extant beaver species, Castor fiber, which is native to Eurasia. The North American beaver is an official animal symbol of Canada.
View Wikipedia Record: Castor canadensis

Invasive Species

View ISSG Record: Castor canadensis

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
21
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
46
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 40.64
EDGE Score: 3.73
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Gestation [2]  4 months 8 days
Litter Size [2]  4
Litters / Year [2]  1
Maximum Longevity [2]  23 years
Nocturnal [1]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [4]  31 inches (78 cm)
Water Biome [1]  Lakes and Ponds, Rivers and Streams
Weaning [2]  60 days
Adult Weight [2]  44.644 lbs (20.25 kg)
Birth Weight [2]  430 grams
Male Weight [4]  41.888 lbs (19.00 kg)
Diet [3]  Herbivore
Diet - Plants [3]  100 %
Forages - Ground [3]  100 %
Female Maturity [2]  1 year 9 months
Male Maturity [2]  1 year 9 months

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

+ Click for partial list (100)Full list (154)

Ecosystems

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
California Floristic Province Mexico, United States No
Madrean Pine-Oak Woodlands Mexico, United States No

Emblem of

New York
Oregon

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Providers

Consumers

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 2de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 3Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 4Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 5Study of Northern Virginia Ecology
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 7Making The Forest And Tundra Wildlife Connection
♦ 8Exploring the Denali Food Web, ParkWise, National Park Service
♦ 9National Geographic Magazine - May 2016 - Yellowstone - The Carnivore Comeback
♦ 10International Flea Database
♦ 11Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0