Castoroides Ohioensis
on the Beaver River Canoe Route
 |
Long-extinct ice-age creatures like the Woolly Mammoth seem to get all of the attention, but we know of no more sexy creature from Pleistocene times that the Castoroides, or "Giant Beaver".
Imagine an animal like today's beaver, only with massive, ridged, curved incisors ... and a narrower tail ... oh, and here's the important part, this beaver weighed as much as 200 kg, about the size of a black bear. This thing was a brute. Had it survived to see the "discovery" of North America by Europeans, well, the Fur Trade would have been much more interesting. Many a coureur de bois may have been eaten by these guys, but it would have been worth it because just one Castoroides could have been used to make a lot of nice hats.
First discovered in Ohio - thus the name "Castoroides ohioensis" - fossils of this creature have been discovered throughout North America, including in Toronto's Don Valley.
|
No worries about giant beavers here, every trip we've made to the Beaver River has included at least one beaver sighting, and none of them have been bigger than us. The cache is located on the Beaver River Canoe Route, and is accessible by watercraft only.