Which animal has been busy here? What was it trying to do?
Did you know that there were lots of beavers in Scotland until they were hunted to extinction for their fur around 500 years ago?
You know that beavers have big flat tails and sharp front teeth for gnawing wood. But did you know that they wear goggles? They have a set of transparent eyelids which help them see underwater.
They are totally vegetarian, are mostly nocturnal and are very shy.
They build dams to create the pools of slow-moving fresh water they like, and to make sure that the entrances to their homes stay underwater to keep predators out.
Their homes are called lodges. They often have two rooms inside them – one a kind of lobby, for drying off, and the other room where the family lives.
They live in family units and their babies are called kits.
In about 2006 people in Tayside started spotting beavers. No one knows where they came from, but they probably escaped or were set free from private collections. Now there are more than 150 beavers living in the Tayside area!
Are beavers good or bad for the environment? They create pools of water which provide a habitat for all kinds of smaller creatures. But they can cause flooding of fields, and they do gnaw trees!
Beaver distribution map for Tayside, 2014
Where is the nearest beaver sighting to your school?
