Wild Guide: American Beaver

Wild Guide: American Beaver

Castor canadensis

The American beaver is a large rodent with webbed hind feet; a large, relatively hairless, horizontally flattened tail; a blunt head with small eyes and ears; a short neck; and a stout body. Its color is a uniform dark brown and a blackish tail. Though mostly nocturnal, beavers will come out during the day especially in fall when they are busy gathering food and preparing their dams and lodges for winter.

Beavers live in and along streams, rivers, marshes, and small lakes. Though they are famous for dam building, in Missouri they are less likely to construct dams than they are in regions farther west and north. Instead, in our fast and fluctuating streams, they usually excavate dens in a high bank.