American Beaver

Castor canadensis Kuhl 1820

2013 California Academy of Sciences cc-by-nc-sa-3.0

Castor canadensis (American Beaver) is a species of rodents in the family beavers. They are associated with freshwater habitat. They are native to Canada, The Nearctic, Mexico, and United States. They are nocturnal herbivores. Individuals are known to live for 180 months and can grow to 754.74 mm. They have parental care (paternal care and female provides care). They rely on swimming and drag powered swimming to move around.

URI: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/ENVO_00000873
Definition: A biome that applies to the freshwater realm.

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URI: http://www.geonames.org/6251999

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URI: https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q737742
Definition: one of the eight terrestrial ecozones constituting the Earth's land surface
Attribution: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ecozone_Nearctic.svg

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URI: http://www.geonames.org/3996063

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URI: http://www.geonames.org/6252001

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URI: https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q59099
Definition: animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material

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URI: http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q309179
Definition: animal behavior characterized by activity during the night and sleeping during the day

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URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/paternalCare

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URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/parentalCareFemale
Definition: the female feeds and nurtures offspring
Attribution: Richard M. Sibly, Christopher C. Witt, Natalie A. Wright, Chris Venditti, Walter Jetz, and James H. Brown. 2012. Energetics, lifestyle, and reproduction in birds. PNAS 109(27):10937-10941, doi:10.1073/pnas.1206512109

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URI: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/GO_0036268
Definition: Self-propelled movement of an organism from one location to another through water, often by means of active fin movement.

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URI: https://eol.org/schema/terms/drag_based_swimming
Definition: Drag swimmers use a cyclic motion where they push water back in a power stroke, and return their limb forward in the return or recovery stroke. When they push water directly backwards, this moves their body forward, but as they return their limbs to the starting position, they push water forward, which will thus pull them back to some degree, and so opposes the direction that the body is heading. This opposing force is called drag. The return-stroke drag causes drag swimmers to employ different strategies than lift swimmers. Reducing drag on the return stroke is essential for optimizing efficiency.

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EOL has data for 62 attributes, including:

age at eye opening
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/AgeAtEyeOpening
- Definition: Age at which both eyes are fully open after birth.
- Comment: Add to VT postnatal growth trait ontology
- Attribution: Kate E. Jones, Jon Bielby, Marcel Cardillo, Susanne A. Fritz, Justin O''Dell, C. David L. Orme, Kamran Safi, Wes Sechrest, Elizabeth H. Boakes, Chris Carbone, Christina Connolly, Michael J. Cutts, Janine K. Foster, Richard Grenyer, Michael Habib, Christopher A. Plaster, Samantha A. Price, Elizabeth A. Rigby, Janna Rist, Amber Teacher, Olaf R. P. Bininda-Emonds, John L. Gittleman, Georgina M. Mace, and Andy Purvis. 2009. PanTHERIA, a species-level database of life history, ecology, and geography of extant and recently extinct mammals. Ecology 90:2648. http://esapubs.org/archive/ecol/E090/184/
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0.5 days
body shape
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/BodyShape
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bilaterally symmetric
- URI: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/PATO_0001324
- Definition: being symmetric about a plane running from frontal end to caudal end (head to tail), and having nearly identical right and left halves
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diet breadth
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/DietBreadth
- Definition: Number of dietary categories eaten by an organism.
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3
diet includes
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/Diet
- Definition: Information about the items eaten by this organism.
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roots
- URI: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/PO_0009005
- Definition: root: A plant axis (PO:0025004) that is part of a root system (PO:0025025).
- Comment: Ontology Description: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/po.owl Ontology Source: http://www.plantontology.org/
- Attribution: [database_cross_reference: POC:curators]
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dispersal age
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/DispersalAge
- Definition: Age at which young permanently leave the parent, parental group, social group or any associated territories.
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729.99 days
ecomorphological guild
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/EcomorphologicalGuild
- Definition: organisms that share certain morphological traits due to adaptation to similar environments and ecological roles
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fossorial and/or ground dwelling
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/fossorialOrGround
- Definition: An organism that is adapted to terrestrial life below ground, on or near the ground.
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geographic range (size of area)
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/GeographicRangeArea
- Definition: The total extent of the geographic range of an organism.
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15377760.47 km^2
habitat breadth
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/HabitatBreadth
- Definition: Number of habitat layers used by an organism
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3
home range
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/HomeRange
- Definition: Size of the area within which everyday activities of individuals or groups (of any type) are typically restricted.
- Attribution: Kate E. Jones, Jon Bielby, Marcel Cardillo, Susanne A. Fritz, Justin O'Dell, C. David L. Orme, Kamran Safi, Wes Sechrest, Elizabeth H. Boakes, Chris Carbone, Christina Connolly, Michael J. Cutts, Janine K. Foster, Richard Grenyer, Michael Habib, Christopher A. Plaster, Samantha A. Price, Elizabeth A. Rigby, Janna Rist, Amber Teacher, Olaf R. P. Bininda-Emonds, John L. Gittleman, Georgina M. Mace, and Andy Purvis. 2009. PanTHERIA: a species-level database of life history, ecology, and geography of extant and recently extinct mammals. Ecology 90:2648. http://esapubs.org/archive/ecol/E090/184/
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0.05 km^2
inter-birth interval
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/InterBirthInterval
- Definition: The length of time between successive births of a female.
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365 days
litters per year
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/LittersPerYear
- Definition: Number of litters per female per year
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1 /year
mating system
- URI: http://eol.org/schema/terms/MatingSystem
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monogamous
- URI: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/ECOCORE_00000063
- Definition: One male and one female have an exclusive mating relationship
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Known occurrences, collected specimens and observations of American Beaver. View this species on GBIF

2013 California Academy of Sciences cc-by-nc-sa-3.0