Beavers Have Lived in Family Clans in the Allgäu for More Than Eleven Million Years

Skull and lower jaw of a present-day beaver (Castor canadensis) compared with lower jaw of Steneofiber depereti from the Allgäu. For paleontologists, Hammerschmiede in the Allgäu region, the site where the great ape Danuvius was discovered, is a treasure trove unlike any other: more than 140 fossil vertebrate species have been found here. Finds have now also enabled them to outline the way of life and development of an extinct species of beaver: Steneofiber depereti was a little smaller than the modern beaver and settled in the watercourses of southern Germany more than eleven million years ago. From a comparative study of the teeth of the prehistoric rodent, Thomas Lechner and Madelaine Böhme from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen conclude that the population dynamics and ecology of this species were very similar to that of the modern European beaver. -Beavers today have strong family ties. Parents and up to two generations of young take care of offspring together,- says the excavation supervisor, PhD candidate Thomas Lechner. Eventually, mature animals leave the clan to seek out their own territory.