Question
Cute Beaver in water doing work

How many species of beaver are currently alive?

Last updated: October 12, 2025

Beavers are hands down the most extra animals on the planet. These paddle-tailed engineers have been reshaping North American waterways like they've been playing SimCity for millions of years. They've got orange teeth that grow nonstop, can stay underwater for 15 minutes without coming up for air, and when they're pissed off they slap the water so everyone knows. How many species of beaver currently exist?

Correct Answer: 2

(Source)

The fur trade nearly wiped out these chunky rodents because Europeans went crazy for beaver hats. But thanks to conservation efforts, both species of beaver, the North American and Eurasian, have had one of the best comeback stories of all time. We actually didn't realize they were different species until the 1970s, when scientists discovered they had different chromosome counts and couldn't interbreed. I just wish we got to experience giant beavers roaming around because they weighed as much as black bears and stood three feet tall, but don't worry, that was more than 10,000 years ago.

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