There
is a studious hush at the old museum, this afternoon. The lights reflect off
the myriad glass display cases as guests moved across the glistening floor
tiles to see all the many exhibits being offered.
My
friend and I are exploring the dinosaur gallery. In the middle of the large
room are two life-sized dinosaur models frozen in mid-action. They look ready
to pounce!
Around
the perimeter of the room there are all kinds of skeletons of the wild
creatures that once lived around here. Some are standing up and full as in
life. Others are lying down, still strewn and flattened into expanses of rock,
just as they were found. Their mighty roars may have once filled the air, but
they’ve been silent, now, for many, many millennia.
On the
far side of the room, my friend is studying an exhibit of prehistoric mammals.
“Hmmmm,” She muses over one informational plaque, “The Giant Beaver. Height: 7 meters
at the shoulder! Wow! That’s a huge beaver!”
Indeed! That translates to
about 25 feet or two storeys tall, if you can imagine that! He must have had
buck teeth the size of doors and been the only creature who could chew down a
Sequoia Redwood Tree! And imagine the mighty, mighty SMACK!!!! he could have
made with that mattress sized tail!
Then,
me, I had to go and ruin all the fun by squinting a little closer at that
museum plaque.
“Hey!
That’s 0.7 meters! (2.3 feet)”
“Oh,
geez!” My friend laughed, “That makes a difference!”
Well,
it certainly does!
Okay,
so there were never any tyrannosaurus-sized beaver clomping through the wilderness
at any time, to my friend’s chagrin. (Fur traders would have loved it, though.
They could have gotten a year’s trapping done in one catch! Although I’m not
suggesting that catch would have been particularly easy.)
However,
the Giant Beaver as he existed was nothing to be taken lightly.
To put
it in perspective, today’s modern beaver grows to be about 3.3 feet (100cm) in
length. Standing on his haunches, the largest beaver might come up to the
average adult’s waist. At 6.2 feet (1.9 meters, the average Giant Beaver on his
haunches would tower over many full-grown men! The largest Giant Beavers grew
to 7.2 feet (2.2 meters)! Now that really is one mighty beaver! Can you imagine
this creature diving into the local pond, or even just strolling past you in
the forest?
The
last of these animals disappeared around 10,000 years ago, and like most
creatures who disappeared that long ago, very little can possibly be known
about them.
It’s easy to imagine massive,
earth-changing dams criss-crossing the country, but the scientists say the
animals don’t appear to have had the teeth for such work. Besides, no
conclusive evidence of giant dams has ever been found. However, one site in
Ohio was identified as the possible remains of a Giant Beaver lodge in 1912. A
Giant Beaver’s skull was found resting in a peaty bed. But with the animals
gone for so many centuries, there’s been more than ample time for all traces of
their activity to decay away.
It’s also easy to imagine the
gunshot crack of his huge tail on the surface of the water when danger approached.
But did that sound ever occur? Because so much of the tail is soft tissue,
scientists cannot tell by fossil remains alone whether the Giant Beaver had the
broad, flat tail that the modern beaver is so famous for. All the skeleton shows
for a tail is a narrow row of bones that look like an extension of the spine.
This is true of both the modern and prehistoric species.
Whether they behaved or entirely
looked like the modern-day beaver or not, it’s hard to argue that they still
must have been incredible animals to see. For now, we’ll have to be satisfied
with marvelling at the traces they left behind and let Mother Nature keep some
of her secrets hidden in the far, distant past. Just where she likes them.
Photo by C. Horwitz and Steven G. Johnson
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