Beaver, Is That You?

When I think of beavers, I think of marmots, and that’s probably because I’ve spotted lots of the Alpine variety during European holidays, and none of their Rodentia relations back home in Scotland. They’re not just both rodents; they look similar, sharing brown furry bodies (beaver comes from the Indo-European root for brown). But beavers are bigger, with adults the length and weight of a small Labrador, and they have waterproof coats and webbed feet. And while marmots are found in high numbers across the European Alps, the Latin-named Castor fiber, the Eurasian beaver, which has slight anatomical and chromosomal differences to its American counterpart, is only just starting to gain ground again in Scotland after centuries of extinction due to hunting for fur, meat and a secretion called ‘castoreum’, believed to have medicinal benefits.