Toward the beginning (which chronologically is the end) of the Fossil Hall with its story of Pre-Historic Life, there is one of the most puzzling and down right fascinating fossils in all of the world, I dare to claim. It's not a Ginormous Land Sloth, or a Majestic Woolly Mammoth, or even some one of its kind creature--making it the rarest fossil of its age. In fact, it's a rather pedestrian critter. The thing that makes it so wonderful is the entirety of the circumstances of its discovery. For you see, it's not just a fossil of an animal. It is the fossil of the animal AND it's ancient home/tomb.
The critter is a member of an extinct species of Beaver! Fossorcastor fossor daemonelix was an ancient relative of our modern day Beavers. Beavers, genus Castor, are what is known as monotypic due to the fact that there is only one form of the species. In the case of the beaver there is also a sub-species that contains some minor general derivations in size, but can readily interbreed and exist in social groups, construct island homes, east the same types of plants, and in every easily decernable way are the same animals. In North America we call them Castor canadensis, and in Northern Europe and the taiga forests of northern Asia they are Castor fiber.
This ancient forebearer seemed to have shared a love of complex engineering creating this corkscrew form to the main entrance of their burrow. The design is pure genius when we realize how it gives the animal a "lip" upon which to steady the spread of their descent and then assist in their ascent without requiring them to pull themselves straight upward. Of course, the obvious difference between the two is that these extinct animals lived across vast regions of grassy plains and had yet to evolve their signature paddle tails.
Don't you think this is crazy amazing, too?
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