Title
Use of anal gland secretion to distinguish the two beaver species Castor canadensis and C. fiber
Document Type
Article
Department or Administrative Unit
Biological Sciences
Publication Date
6-1999
Abstract
Introduced North American beavers Castor canadensis pose a potential threat to the continuing recovery of Eurasian beaver C. fiber populations in several European countries. For management purposes, it is necessary to be able to identify and distinguish the two species. This, however, is difficult because the two species are morphologically, ecologically and behaviorally similar. To find a method for species identification, we examined the possibility of using anal gland secretion (AGS) collected from the two beaver species. We asked 20 inexperienced volunteers to inspect the color and viscosity of the AGS. When we provided the volunteers with the sex of each beaver and descriptions of the color and viscosity of AGS from males and females of the two species, all volunteers could 100% correctly identify the two species. We therefore conclude that the color and viscosity of the AGS can be used for a quick and easy identification of the two beaver species.
Recommended Citation
Rosell, F. & Sun, L. (1999). Use of anal gland secretion to distinguish the two beaver species Castor canadensis and C. fiber. Wildlife Biology, 5(2), 119-123.
Journal
Wildlife Biology
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 Wildlife Biology
Comments
This article was originally published in the journal Wildlife Biology. The full-text article from the publisher can be found here.