Eurasian Beaver

The **Eurasian Beaver** appeared in 2015 videogame called *Kemono Friends*. The Eurasian Beaver is a type of mammalian Friend that debuted in the original Kemono Friends mobile game. She has since made a cameo appearance in the first Kemono Friends Stage Play and has been featured in the mobile games Kemono Friends Festival and Kemono Friends Pavilion.

She has pinkish pale brown hair with the top part being black, the two pieces of her front hair is separated to each sides with the right one having a white clipper. She has dark brown eyes and a grayish brown jacket with a lighter colored stripe on it and a white shirt with a black tie underneath. She has ripped grown shorts and another short that is black underneath. She has black shoes with a black bow on them.

This hard-working and diligent animal is one of the largest rodent species throughout the world. Their fur consists of two layers: the undercoat and the outer coat. The undercoat of the Eurasian beaver is soft, thick and dark-grayish in color. The outer coat is longer, covered with tough guard hairs that are reddish-brown in color. Northern populations of Eurasian beaver usually have darker coloring. The scaly tail is naked, broad, flattened horizontally and oval-shaped. The Eurasian beaver has short legs, small ears, blunt muzzle and valvular nostrils. This animal has nictitating membranes on its eyes, which close, as the beaver goes under water. Coloration of their feet varies from dark-brown to black. Each foot has 5 digits while rear feet are webbed with a split nail inside of two toes, which they use for grooming.

These rodents are semi-aquatic animals, and their main habitat is freshwater systems such as rivers, streams, lakes and ponds. They usually prefer forested areas, though can also be found in swamps and marshes. Area of their distribution covers a huge territory from north-eastern Europe to Central Eurasia, stretching southward from Norway on Scandinavian Peninsula to Denmark, through Germany to the Alps, and then eastward, reaching as far as Mongolia.

Eurasian beavers are social animals, gathering in colonies. Beaver colonies have only one dominant breeding pair and can include up to 12 individuals. They construct burrows in the bank of a river or a pond. In the areas where the riverbank is unsuitable for habitation, they construct their lodges away from shore, using sticks and mud. They are mainly nocturnal, though can also be active by day. The Eurasian beavers are active all year round. However, in the northernmost areas of their range, the beavers rarely come above the ice surface during the winter. For this reason, during the autumn months, they store food supplies in the water to help them get through the winter. They are extremely territorial animals. The beavers use olfactory signals, marking their territory with castoreum.

The Eurasian beaver is a herbivorous (folivorous and lignivorous) animal. During the winter, their diet mainly consists of woody vegetation such as aspen tree, birch tree or willow. In the summer months, however, these rodents consume aquatic plants, bark, leaves, roots, buds, twigs, shoots as well as crops in agricultural areas.

Eurasian beavers have monogamous mating system with only one breeding pair per colony. The breeding season takes place in January-February with the gestation period, lasting 60-128 days. The female usually gives birth to 1-3 babies, sometimes up to 6 and more. The mother takes care of the young, cleaning them and providing with food. The babies are weaned at the age of 6 weeks, after which sub-adults in the colony help them with food, bringing them soft bark and small sticks, until the young reach the age of 3 months. Then, by the age of 1.5 - 2 years, they leave, sometimes being driven out by the adult female. The beavers start mating at 3 years old.

Pollution of rivers and streams, loss of habitat as well as road accidents are among major threats to the Eurasian beaver population. In Mongolia, the species is illegally hunted. On the other hand, in north-west of Russia and in Finland, they are threatened by the competition with the introduced population of American Beaver.