on mountain beavers
Mar. 16th, 2004 12:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eubInteresting creature. Also, it sounds more of a menace to young Doug-firs than I had realized.
Boot update: I hammered down the hummock. It was disconcertingly easy. What is in there, a copper shank?
http://dirttime.ws/Notebook/Aplodontia.htm
They're not beavers. They may be quite similar to their ur-rodent ancestors.
It neither pants nor sweats, poor beast.
It eats almost any vegetation -- it eats bracken. From woody plants it both gnaws bark and nips off limbs.
It builds haystacks: "These piles of vegetation are left to wilt at the entrance to the burrow before transport to a feeding chamber." I didn't notice any of those.
http://infowright.com/mtbeaver/
Their kidneys have no loops of Henle, so they drink a lot of water.
http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/walkers_mammals_of_the_world/rodentia/rodentia.aplodontidae.aplodontia.html
Boot update: I hammered down the hummock. It was disconcertingly easy. What is in there, a copper shank?
http://dirttime.ws/Notebook/Aplodontia.htm
They're not beavers. They may be quite similar to their ur-rodent ancestors.
It neither pants nor sweats, poor beast.
It eats almost any vegetation -- it eats bracken. From woody plants it both gnaws bark and nips off limbs.
It builds haystacks: "These piles of vegetation are left to wilt at the entrance to the burrow before transport to a feeding chamber." I didn't notice any of those.
Look for herbs that have been cut at a 45 degree angle typical of rodents. Distinguish this from the ragged cut that deer and elk make since they only have teeth on the lower jaw and tear rather than shear the stem.
http://infowright.com/mtbeaver/
Their kidneys have no loops of Henle, so they drink a lot of water.
The largest flea in the world, Hystricopsylla schefferi, is only known from collections made from mountain beaver and their burrows, and grows to 9 mm (over 1/3 inch) in length! The coevolution of these two organisms has never been investigated but, given the ancient lineage of mountain beaver, may provide some interesting insights to both. For a fascinating discussion on this subject and the danger of coextinction, check out this article in Flea News (vol. 49, pg 566-67).
http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/walkers_mammals_of_the_world/rodentia/rodentia.aplodontidae.aplodontia.html
In winter and summer it climbs shrubs and small trees to cut off limbs and twigs, climbing from one branch to another, cutting off the branches as it ascends. Although it may let the twigs fall to the ground as they are cut off, it usually carries them back to the ground by descending the tree headfirst. The sewellel is not a very good climber but can go as high as seven meters.
It reportedly causes considerable damage to Douglas fir regeneration
in parts of the Pacific Northwest (Martin 1971).
