Castoridae (Beavers)
Four million year old stick from with cut marks made by the fossil beaver, Dipoides. Cut surface is about 2 cm long. The stick was found in situ at the Beaver Pond fossil site, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. (Photo credit: Martin Lipman)
Modern beavers are famously industrious rodents, represented today by two species: The North American Castor canadensis and the European Castor fiber. Both are large rodents renowned for their ability to engineer terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems by felling trees and building lodges and dams. Much of my research has focused on the evolution of woodcutting and swimming in beavers. This work includes research on the oldest evidence of woodcutting and construction behaviour by beavers, from the High Arctic (Ellesmere Island, Nunavut).
REFERENCES
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Davies, N.S., J.C. Gosse, A. Rouillard, N. Rybczynski, J. Meng, A.V. Reyes and J. Kiguktak. 2022. Wood Jams or beaver dams? Pliocene life sediment and landscape interactions in the Canadian High Arctic. Palaios, 37: 1-18. DOI: 10.2110/palo.2021.065
Fish, F.E., N. Rybczynski, G.V. Lauder, C.M. Duff. 2021. The Role of the Tail or Lack Thereof in the Evolution of Tetrapod Aquatic Propulsion. Integrative and Comparative Biology, 61(2): 398–413. DOI: 10.1093/icb/icab021.
Korth, W.W. & N. Rybczynski. 2003. A new unusual castorid (Rodentia) from the earliest Miocene of Nebraska. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 23(3): 667–675. DOI: 10.1671/2371.
Plint, T., F.J. Longstaffe, F.J., A. Ballantyne, A. Telka, N. Rybczynski. 2020. Evolution of woodcutting behaviour in Early Pliocene beaver driven by consumption of woody plants. Scientific Reports. 10, 13111. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-70164-1
Rybczynski, N., E.M. Ross, J.X. Samuels, & W.W. Korth. 2010. Re-evaluation of Sinocastor (Rodentia: Castoridae) with implications on the origin of modern beavers. PLoS ONE. 5(11): e13990. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0013990
Rybczynski, N. 2008. Woodcutting behavior in beavers (Castoridae, Rodentia): estimating ecological performance in a modern and a fossil taxon. Palaeobiology 34(3): 389-402. DOI: 10.1666/06085.1Rybczynski, N. 2007.
Castorid phylogenetics: Implications for the evolution of swimming and tree exploitation in beavers. Journal of Mammalian Evolution. 14: 1-35. DOI: 10.1007/s10914-006-9017-3.
Castor skull, showing head position during woodcutting (Source: Rybczynski, 2008)
