Loopy, the top-ranked app on the Internet, is a "worker" that can be killed by a tree.

Recently, the most popular emoticon in the world is Loopy !

Everyone says Ruby is a beaver, and this may come from the Taiwanese version. In fact, there is no animal called "beaver", there are only beavers and nutrias. From the appearance and the official statement, Ruby should be a beaver | "Pororo the Little Penguin"

This is a character in the Korean cartoon "Pororo the Little Penguin". In the official setting, Ruby is a shy beaver ("Shy girl beaver"), living on a remote snow-covered island with good friends such as penguins, polar bears, foxes, and dinosaurs.

Ruby has a sweet and lovely face, but in the expression pack of workers, she quickly becomes sad, twisted or weird...

"Are you working hard?"｜"Pororo the Little Penguin"

In the real world, Ruby and her beaver friends are indeed diligent "workers". They are the most powerful engineers and water conservancy experts among mammals , and can build quite luxurious dams. But sadly, they can also be injured in the process of working, such as being killed by a tree.

Ruby's Beaver Tail

There are two kinds of beavers living in the world, the Eurasian beaver in Eurasia and the American beaver in America. They both belong to the genus Beaver in the family Beaver of the order Rodentia. As a member of the order Rodentia, Ruby has iconic large incisors, and like the familiar brown rat, the incisors can continue to grow throughout life.

The capybara, which has also recently become a top internet celebrity, is the largest rodent in the world, and the beaver ranks second.

Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber), mousey | Dion Art / Wikimedia Commons

Like sea otters and river otters, beavers are semi-aquatic animals with a host of aquatic adaptations, including waterproof and warm fur, webbed feet, and nostrils that can close on their own.

But beavers have another feature that no other aquatic or semi-aquatic mammals have, which can be considered a signature feature - a true paddle-shaped tail , and Ruby's tail is the same.

American beaver (Castor canadensis). Note the tail. It's so flat! | Minette Layne / Wikimedia Commons

Ruby's tail is also flat｜Pororo the Little Penguin

Unlike the sea otter's large, felt-pen-like, furry, thick tail, the beaver's tail is a highly specialized product. The vertebral body of the beaver's tail vertebra is short in length and long in width, with well-developed transverse spurs on both sides, and a tight structure, which looks almost like a connected bone plate. On the outside of such a tail bone, a layer of tight muscle and special, keratinized skin are attached, forming a hard and dense "paddle". With the help of such a magical "tool", the beaver's swimming speed in the water is amazing.

However, although it looks like a paddle, the beaver's tail can still move in a wave-like manner. This can provide the beaver with very powerful propulsion when paddling, and can also reduce the water resistance during movement. In addition, this iconic large flat tail has a very interesting use - but I will keep it a secret here, and we will talk about it later.

Hey Hey｜Steve / American Beaver

The most powerful civil engineer in the mammal world

In nature, there are not many animals like humans who transform the natural environment to improve their living conditions, and beavers are the best among them. Without further ado, here are the pictures to give you a visual impact:

A beaver dam big enough to block a river | PBS/ YouTube

This wooden dam is the masterpiece of beavers, also known as a beaver dam . Beavers are mostly distributed in high-latitude areas and live a semi-aquatic life. If they come out of the water with wet fur in the winter, they are likely to be frozen to death. Therefore, cold protection becomes their first priority when building nests .

However, unlike otters who choose to live in burrows, beavers have obviously put all their skills into "nest building" - the ingenuity of the design of their nests is enough to shock people even in the context of human civilization.

Let someone stand next to it and feel the size of the beaver dam more intuitively｜animalproson

The main body of a beaver's den is a complex "structure". They usually choose a relatively dry sandbar or wetland in the water of their habitat - it would be even better if there is a tree directly on it, and then lay out a "foundation" with soft mud, grass, fallen leaves and small branches. Beavers carry wood along the waterway to the foundation, and use branches, soil, gravel, etc. to build a huge vault layer by layer . This is the living place of the entire beaver family.

A well-ventilated woodpile can keep the nest dry, and the soil and grass used to pave the ground can generate a certain amount of heat as they rot and degrade to maintain the temperature of the nest, making it a good place to be warm in winter and cool in summer .

Beaver's lair | Wikipedia

There are multiple passages opening downwards under the living room, and the outer openings of these passages are set below the water surface, which is hidden and difficult to reach, enough to prevent the beaver's natural enemies. In order to ensure that this opening can always be submerged in water, the beaver built a magnificent beaver dam and built a "reservoir" .

A simple diagram of a beaver nest | SlideShare

The construction of a "reservoir" is a big project. First, beavers will use a thick and long piece of wood as the "foundation stone" of the entire dam , and place it horizontally at an "outlet" of the pool where the nest is built. Before successfully intercepting the flowing river water, beavers will make multiple attempts until they find the most suitable position - which can both cut off the water flow and ensure that the "foundation stone" of the dam is not washed away by the water.

After putting down the "foundation stone", the beavers will pile some thick branches and wood in a direction perpendicular to the "foundation stone" on the side where the water flow slows down to reinforce the dam body ; then they will build the entire dam layer by layer in a criss-cross manner until the dam body becomes strong enough.

Beavers repairing dams. Look carefully: dams are made of more than just wood｜PBS / YouTube

During the entire construction process, the beavers will return to their nests from time to time to observe the situation. If the water storage depth is not enough to flood the entrance of the passage, the beavers will continue to reinforce and raise the dam. If the water level is too high and may flood the dry living room, the beavers will try to remove part of the dam to reduce the amount of water storage.

This construction and demolition project is a long-term and continuous maintenance work , especially when the rainy season and ice flood season come, if you are not prepared in advance, the cold lake water may flood the entire nest. Once this happens, the beavers will have to abandon their homes and migrate to another place to start a new life.

The beaver family is ready to run away｜Mercury Freedom

Attack! The paddle tail kills!

Since building a home is so difficult, beavers are naturally very family-oriented animals. They usually live in groups as a family unit, and often several neighboring families will form a cooperative relationship to jointly build a huge dam of astonishing scale and jointly shoulder the responsibility of maintaining the dam.

However, as an animal with few means of attack, once natural enemies come to the door and beavers are unwilling to give up this "villa" easily, how can they defend their homes?

Obviously, it is unrealistic to chew up a tree on the spot and hope that it falls on its predator... so at this time, they will use their only "weapon" - their tail .

Another use for the paddle-shaped tail emerges! | Cheryl Reynolds / Worth a Dam organization

Beavers can suddenly dive in shallow water and slap their flat tails against the water surface to create a loud noise, which can scare away most intruders. When this sound weapon doesn't work, they will risk their lives to swim close to the intruders and slap their tails directly on their faces . I believe everyone has had the experience of being slapped by their parents. Given the structure and muscle strength of a beaver's tail, being slapped by a beaver's tail will definitely hurt more...

Beaver is sad to pass the high tree pass

Beavers are very good at gnawing trees , as can be seen from their activities of building nests and constructing beaver dams. The destructive power they can cause to the surrounding trees is quite amazing.

So the question is, will the beaver be killed by the tree it has chewed down?

Chewing trees and stuff is totally fine | D. Gordon E. Robertson / Wikipedia

The answer is: Yes, and it’s not uncommon.

Although beavers are natural "engineers", they also have a fatal problem, that is - follow their feelings. They do not have a very obvious selection strategy when choosing which tree to gnaw, generally they just choose a rough range, which leads to them occasionally trying to knock down some trees that are obviously beyond their ability ...

In addition, unlike humans who cut trees in a targeted manner, beavers gnaw trees in circles. After gnawing a tree in a circle, they have no way of judging when and in which direction the tree will fall .

It’s safer to eat small trees｜Daderot / Wikipedia

Therefore, beavers can only guess when dodging falling trees. Just like when I filled in the calculus test paper, if I guessed right, I passed and survived; if I guessed wrong... well... everyone knows...

The past of murder

The story of beavers is not always so happy. They were once hunted for their fur and spices.

Beaver skin | Mickey Bohnacker / Wikipedia

Since the 16th century, the European upper class has begun to wear "beaver hats ", which include the top hats we are familiar with. As the name suggests, this hat is related to beaver skin. In fact, it is made of beaver's soft hair. The beaver's hair near the skin is dense, soft and warm, and is considered an excellent material for making hats.

On the other hand, the secretion of the anal glands of adult Eurasian beavers and American beavers is called " Castorum ", which has been regarded as a precious high-grade spice since ancient times. At that time, it was even promoted as a panacea for headaches, inflammation, and fever. For these reasons, hunting beavers is extremely profitable. The dams and nests built by beavers are safe and comfortable, but they are completely unable to resist the traps and iron cages set by humans.

Rex fur hat | Syntax max 2.0 / wikimedia

While Eurasian beavers were being hunted in large numbers in Europe, the huge number of American beavers was also targeted by humans . From 1620 to 1630, more than 10,000 beavers were hunted each year in Massachusetts and Connecticut; just 10 years later, more than 80,000 beavers were hunted each year in the Hudson River and New York State.

After the beaver population in the eastern United States declined dramatically, profit drove people to head west. Along the Mississippi River and the St. Lawrence River, across the central plains, Europeans purchased and exchanged beaver skins from Native Americans and fur hunters (Mountain men). The "California Fur Fever" in the 19th century, long before the "Gold Rush", strongly promoted European colonists to explore the western North America.

After the Eurasian beaver was hunted, hunters set their sights on the American beaver | Per Harald Olsen / Wikipedia

Europeans followed the rivers and lakes to the vast West in pursuit of beaver fur. During this movement, many of the dams built by American beavers disappeared, along with the wetlands and delicate freshwater ecosystems enclosed by those dams.

Fortunately, after entering the 20th century, the decline in demand and the thriving environmental movement finally ended the large-scale hunting of American beavers. Currently, the number of American beavers and Eurasian beavers is recovering steadily, and they are both listed as "least concern" species by the IUCN, and will not be threatened with extinction for some time. But compared to their heyday, beavers are no longer seen in many areas.

Cliff/Wikipedia

Author: Elang, Uncle Zhong

Editor: Calendar Girl, Mai Mai

Title image source: "Little Penguin Pororo"

This article comes from GuokrNature (ID: GuokrNature)