Mammals · plate 19 of 60
Beaver
Castor fiber
Hears running water. Stops it. Goes to bed.
Only 3.0% of people are Beavers. (estimated)
If you're a Beaver
You are industrious, domestic, and committed for life. Beavers pair for years, raise the kits with help from last year's young, and keep a lodge and dam in constant repair; you are the same kind of homebody with a project. You rarely leave the pond. You have, however, redesigned the pond.
A beaver's front teeth are orange because the enamel contains iron, which makes them harder and more resistant to acid than white enamel would be.
The Beaver as a spirit animal
You are the person who fixes the thing rather than complaining about it. You are loyal, practical, and happiest with a long-term project and a family to share it with. The flaw is that you cannot leave running water alone, including other people's running water, and you have never once gone anywhere. The pond is excellent. You made it. You know.
Grounded in how the species actually lives; nothing borrowed from anyone's tradition. Why we put it that way.
How to get along with a Beaver
Do
- Give them a project with a deadline in autumn; the dam must hold before winter.
- Stay close to home; a beaver's whole world is within a short swim of the lodge.
- Involve the family; everyone in the lodge works, including the teenagers.
Don't
- Don't suggest travel; beavers have no interest in anything past the pond.
- Don't leave water running near them; it will be stopped and you will be asked to move.
When it goes wrong: An alarmed beaver slaps its tail on the water, loudly, and dives; wait for it to surface, which it will, and carry on calmly.
The Beaver in a relationship
You love for keeps. Beavers are among the few mammals that form lasting pairs, sharing the lodge and the work for years and raising each litter together with the older kits helping. You show love by maintenance: the fixed roof, the stocked larder, the dam. Your partner is never cold and never surprised.
Field notes
Every animal is placed on six personality traits derived from how the species lives. Your answers are placed on the same six, and the closest animal wins. How the scoring works
- Sociability
- 6
- Boldness
- 3
- Energy
- 7
- Curiosity
- 5
- Devotion
- 10
- Roaming
- 1
- Beavers pair for years, often for life, and their young stay for about two years, helping to look after the next litter.
- Beavers can stay under water for around fifteen minutes, and their lips close behind the front teeth so they can chew underwater.
- Beavers respond to the sound of running water by building; in experiments, a loudspeaker playing a trickle gets buried in sticks and mud.
Beavers in literature
- Paddy the Beaver — The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver, Thornton W. Burgess (1917)
- The Beaver — The Hunting of the Snark, Lewis Carroll (1876)
- The Beaver — Aesop's Fables (The Beaver), Aesop (550 BCE)
Characters from public-domain works. Company, not a verdict.
Closest personalities
The animals whose profiles sit nearest to the Beaver's. If you got Beaver, one of these was probably your runner-up.
Other mammals
WolfRed FoxBrown BearPolar BearLionTigerLeopardCheetahElephantGiraffeHippopotamusGorillaOrangutanSlothKoalaKangarooPlatypusOtterBadgerRaccoonHedgehogBatCamelDolphinSperm Whale
Among the 60
Mammalia: Their Various Orders and Habits, Louis Figuier (1870). Public domain, viacommons.wikimedia.org.All credits
