Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
Speaker 2: is Robert.
Speaker 3: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we are back
Speaker 3: with part two of our series on the beaver. Yeah.
Speaker 2: In the last episode, we hopefully gave you a newfound, improved,
Speaker 2: and reinvigorated appreciation for the common beaver, the world's second
Speaker 2: largest living rodent and a tireless ecosystem engineer.
Speaker 3: That's right. Last time we focused mainly on the real
Speaker 3: life biology, behavior, and ecological role of the beaver, So
Speaker 3: if you haven't listened to part one, you should probably
Speaker 3: go back and check that one out first. I think
Speaker 3: that will give you a richer understanding of the stuff
Speaker 3: we're going to be talking about today. But for a
Speaker 3: very brief recap, Yeah, beavers are large. They're the second
Speaker 3: largest extant rodent after the capybara. Beavers have iron in
Speaker 3: their teeth, perfect fortureing through wood to cut down trees
Speaker 3: and for gnawing off pieces of vegetation. Beavers, of course
Speaker 3: eat vegetation their herbivores, and their diet includes foliage, but
Speaker 3: also the bark and the outer layers of soft wood
Speaker 3: from tree branches and trunks. Beavers, of course build amazing structures.
Speaker 3: They dam waterways to change the characteristics of flowing waterways
Speaker 3: to sort of like create ponds and redirect water flow
Speaker 3: and so forth to deepen water channels. And they also
Speaker 3: build these essentially impenetrable lodges with underwater entrances and exits
Speaker 3: for their own housing and protection. And these constructions also
Speaker 3: allow underwater storage of caches of vegetation to provide food
Speaker 3: throughout the winter. And then finally, we discussed several studies
Speaker 3: of what might or might not be considered tool use
Speaker 3: in beavers. This was a lot of fun, including we
Speaker 3: had a long digression on the so called stick displays
Speaker 3: where some beavers in particular populations. Is not common to
Speaker 3: all beavers of either of the extent species, but this
Speaker 3: was documented among some Eurasian beavers in Norway. They would
Speaker 3: pick up a stick and they would shake it, shake
Speaker 3: it up and down while holding it in the mouth
Speaker 3: and forepaws. The researchers believed this was to demonstrate strength
Speaker 3: in order to drive away potential antagonists, maybe other beavers
Speaker 3: encroaching onto their territory, And of course we ended up
Speaker 3: highlighting the most impressive of the stick shaking beavers, a beautiful,
Speaker 3: powerful warrior of the wasteland named Beergit.
Speaker 2: Yes her name, I had to look this up. Her
Speaker 2: name and apparently means power, strength, vigor, and virtue.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: The other beaver in that study that's not as.
Speaker 3: As impressive the second place shake.
Speaker 2: The second place was Froda. Frodo's name means clever, learned,
Speaker 2: and wise. And this is also, like I said, this
Speaker 2: is related to Frodo, Like Frodo is like a variation
Speaker 2: of this name that Tolkien used in the Lord of
Speaker 2: the Rings.
Speaker 3: That makes sense. Yeah, While the real life biology of
Speaker 3: the beaver is truly fascinating, what actually first got us
Speaker 3: interested in this topic was something you came across, rob,
Speaker 3: which was the pattern of deeply off the mark illustrations
Speaker 3: of beavers in medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, just so far
Speaker 3: off the mark in depicting this animal. You wonder how
Speaker 3: it happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got into a little bit and discussed how,
Speaker 2: you know, we have to take into account that while
Speaker 2: we do have one variety of beavers in North America
Speaker 2: and the other variety in Eurasia, you know, not everyone
Speaker 2: would have had direct exposure to it. You have that
Speaker 2: game of telephone taking place about these species depending on
Speaker 2: illustrations and second and third hand accounts. Then there's the
Speaker 2: added fact that beavers are largely nocturnal. They live out
Speaker 2: often in very remote circumstances, so the average even observer
Speaker 2: may not get to observe them that closely. And then,
Speaker 2: as we'll discuss in this episode, even more there are
Speaker 2: additional elements of their physiology that may mystify someone who
Speaker 2: is observing them in the wild or trying to make
Speaker 2: sense of their bodies as the carcass is processed.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Another thing though, is that the Eurasian beaver was
Speaker 3: once hunted nearer to extinction. Its populations have bounced back
Speaker 3: significantly since then since the twentieth century, but it came
Speaker 3: kind of close for the Eurasian beaver, like the hunter
Speaker 3: has really got over on them for a while. Yeah.
Speaker 2: North American beavers were also in bad shape, and two
Speaker 2: of the main drivers for this. One of them is
Speaker 2: beaver hats in beaver fur. I'm to understand that the
Speaker 2: beaver hat going out of style helped out a lot,
Speaker 2: but there's another major beaver product, beaver derived product we're
Speaker 2: going to discuss in this episode that also threatened these species.
Speaker 2: So yeah, these are going to be important, especially when
Speaker 2: we talk about a particular detail of various bestiaries and
Speaker 2: illuminated manuscripts that show beavers or alleged beavers. Some of
Speaker 2: these are very strange beavers. They look more like a
Speaker 2: deer or a dog, or a lion or you name it.
Speaker 2: But at any rate, the main perplexing detail is that
Speaker 2: they are depicted chewing off their own testicles whilst being
Speaker 2: pursued by a human hunter.
Speaker 3: I thought we should mention and describe a few of
Speaker 3: these actual illustrations and the manuscripts they come from, So
Speaker 3: I came across a post about this on the British
Speaker 3: Library's Medieval Manuscripts blog. I love the British Library's blogs,
Speaker 3: by the way, they often are wonderful resource. But this
Speaker 3: post is from November seventh, twenty twelve. It's called Beaver's
Speaker 3: on the Run by Nicole Eddie and it includes a
Speaker 3: number of illustrations, a couple that we alluded to at
Speaker 3: the beginning of part one of this series and several
Speaker 3: that I think we haven't talked about yet, but none
Speaker 3: of which have we featured in detail. So the author
Speaker 3: of this blog post says you can usually recognize a
Speaker 3: beaver in a medieval bestiary, which seemed at first like
Speaker 3: a very odd statement because most of these drawings look
Speaker 3: absolutely nothing like the real animal, not even a little,
Speaker 3: But she goes on to explain you can recognize them
Speaker 3: because they are always depicted the same way in a
Speaker 3: characteristic or stereotyped scene quote on the run, pursued by
Speaker 3: a hunter who is frequently blowing a horn and accompanied
Speaker 3: by hunting dogs. And just as you said, Rob, we
Speaker 3: can add to that image the fact that they are
Speaker 3: often depicted either discarding or in the middle of biting
Speaker 3: off their own testicles while in hot pursuit. Several examples.
Speaker 3: Let's start with one we briefly alluded to in part one.
Speaker 3: So this is a miniature from a Latin bestiary originating
Speaker 3: in England from the second or third quarter of the
Speaker 3: thirteenth century. The manuscript is known as Sloane thirty five
Speaker 3: forty four. So what we see in a miniature with
Speaker 3: the Latin text all around is a sort of rectangle
Speaker 3: of red background decorated with these three leaf clover shapes,
Speaker 3: and then we have what appears to be some kind
Speaker 3: of big cat, maybe a mountain lion. Compared to the
Speaker 3: human and the dog in this drawing, it is about
Speaker 3: the size of a horse. Also, it has a horse's tail.
Speaker 3: Did you notice that has like a hairtail.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this does not even look like a fish tail.
Speaker 2: As we mentioned before some depictions of beavers, they often
Speaker 2: have almost like a mermaid quality to them.
Speaker 3: Huh. Of course, beavers do have interesting unusual tails. They
Speaker 3: have the flat tail, which aids them in swimming, but
Speaker 3: they also use for a type of signaling known as
Speaker 3: water slapping, where they slap the surface of the water
Speaker 3: to make loud sounds, and this is used for social
Speaker 3: reasons to signal to the to the other beavers around
Speaker 3: them that may be a predator or a rival beaver
Speaker 3: from outside the family group is approaching their territory.
Speaker 2: I will say this about this particular quote unquote beaver.
Speaker 2: The posture here with feet back rear, feet on the ground, front,
Speaker 2: feet elevated, and this tail as horsey as it looks,
Speaker 2: it is kind of going down and out, which is
Speaker 2: at least vaguely reminiscent of the way that beavers will
Speaker 2: often walk if they're carrying something, you know, with that
Speaker 2: tail helping them to balance, and their front legs are
Speaker 2: up helping to carry something.
Speaker 3: That would be fortunate if that was the artist's intention.
Speaker 3: But I think what's being shown here is a horsehair
Speaker 3: style tail like flapping in the wind as the beaver runs.
Speaker 2: If it were not for the you know, vulgar error
Speaker 2: as we'll discuss regarding the eating of the testicles or
Speaker 2: the biting of the testicles here, this is otherwise, I
Speaker 2: think a beautiful image. I like the use of the
Speaker 2: like the red, the like the deep crimson behind it.
Speaker 3: Oh but wait, we didn't get to the animal's head yet.
Speaker 3: So it's got horse sized body, horse looking tail, but
Speaker 3: with feline paws, and an approximately leonine head like a
Speaker 3: mountain lion's head, but also with a snake neck. It's
Speaker 3: kind of a dragon like. The neck is curving around
Speaker 3: and it appears to be covered in maybe feathers or scales,
Speaker 3: and the neck is curving all the way around for
Speaker 3: the head to reach back and yes, bite its own testicles.
Speaker 3: While the beast is in mid spring, it's leaping through
Speaker 3: the air and biting while it's aloft. Its front paws
Speaker 3: are off the ground.
Speaker 2: It is a strange image, Jef. You had no background
Speaker 2: on this, you would just think this is a fantastic creature.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Meanwhile, the hunting dog is after it is, of
Speaker 3: course sort of barking, pulling. Maybe is that a leashure?
Speaker 3: I can't quite tell. But there's a hunter. Also a
Speaker 3: dude standing there looking kind of like a hungover George Washington,
Speaker 3: and he is blowing an upturned hunter's horn.
Speaker 2: Yeah. All the eyes in this image look kind of bloodshot.
Speaker 2: Adds an interesting effect to it.
Speaker 3: Okay, next image for us to discuss. This is from
Speaker 3: a work known as the Rochester Bestiary from England around
Speaker 3: the year twelve, in a manuscript called Royal twelve f.
Speaker 3: This one is a lot more colorful. Here, the hunt
Speaker 3: takes place on a green hill with a golden sky
Speaker 3: in the background and trees that look like asparagus. The
Speaker 3: hunter has blonde surfer hair and wears a blue tunic.
Speaker 3: He really does. It's kind of surfery, isn't it. It's
Speaker 3: kind of Owen Wilson hair. Yeah, and he's blowing as
Speaker 3: his horn. He's carrying either a sword or a club
Speaker 3: of some kind in the other hand from the horn,
Speaker 3: The dogs are howling in pursuit. The beaver is once
Speaker 3: again sort of a serpentine lion with the long scaly
Speaker 3: neck twisting all the way back around, biting off the genitalia,
Speaker 3: but with a different face this time. The beaver's face
Speaker 3: here is kind of sad and porky, like like a
Speaker 3: lion pig muttering geez not again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is another strange one where the beaver looks
Speaker 2: more like a camel or perhaps you know, some variation
Speaker 2: of prehistoric mammal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now I want to get into some ones that
Speaker 3: have more differences. The next one has actually no testicle biting.
Speaker 3: This is from an herbal medicine manual called Tractatus de
Speaker 3: Herbis from Salerno, which is in Italy, produced between twelve
Speaker 3: eighty and thirteen ten. The manuscript is called Egerton seven
Speaker 3: forty seven. Here the hunter is a wizard. That interesting.
Speaker 3: He's wearing a pointy wizard hat, and he has huge hands,
Speaker 3: one of which is like up in front of his face,
Speaker 3: almost as if he's marveling at the hand, like how
Speaker 3: did my hand get this way? What has become of me?
Speaker 2: Yeah? This image has a kind of childlike wonder to it,
Speaker 2: especially when we're describing the beaver.
Speaker 3: That's right, right, So, yeah, the wizard hunter has gigantic
Speaker 3: hands bigger than his head. He's got his horn slung
Speaker 3: around his shoulder. He's about to heave a spear. Interesting,
Speaker 3: I guess there was spear hunting of beavers maybe, But
Speaker 3: he's got a spear like cocked back, ready to throw it.
Speaker 3: And then the hunter, the dogs, and the beaver are
Speaker 3: all standing in what looks like a field of spinach plants,
Speaker 3: Like there are these green forking plants interspersed all around.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's supposed to be the kind
Speaker 3: of vegetation growing in the landscape that has been altered
Speaker 3: by the proximity of a beaver dam. And then one
Speaker 3: of the dogs is gigantic and the other is not
Speaker 3: that gigantic. And then the beaver is a horse, And
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean that it's not like a horse.
Speaker 3: The beaver is a horse. It's just a.
Speaker 2: Horse, Yeah, a kind of shaggy looking horse with I
Speaker 2: believe visible testicles.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, not just visible. They're sort of in bold
Speaker 3: compared to the rest of the illustration, Do you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying? Yeah, Yeah, they're like filled in a
Speaker 3: darker color than anything else. So the beaver horse is
Speaker 3: not biting them off, but they're just like, they're very
Speaker 3: prominent and they're almost perfectly centered in the illustration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe the dogs got to him before you get
Speaker 2: in this narrative, get rid of them.
Speaker 3: Okay, This next one I thought was really fun. This
Speaker 3: is from another English best ear a twelfth century in
Speaker 3: a manuscript called Stowe ten sixty seven. It's not fully colored,
Speaker 3: in just a line drawing. The hunter looks like he's
Speaker 3: dancing kind of. He looks, you know, jolly, like he's moving,
Speaker 3: he's feeling the rhythm, and he's blowing his horn and
Speaker 3: pointing a single finger at the beaver with his one hand.
Speaker 3: You see the pointing hand. I don't know why. That
Speaker 3: was really funny to me. But the beaver, meanwhile, is
Speaker 3: a dog. It's just fully a dog, but with one
Speaker 3: major variation with weird bulbous eye sockets bulging out of
Speaker 3: his head over the snout. And we were trying to
Speaker 3: figure out which Star Wars alien this dog looked like.
Speaker 3: I eventually realized I was sort of thinking, it looks
Speaker 3: like the dog version of the Zandozan assassin from the
Speaker 3: Last Starfighter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I can see that, and I took a
Speaker 2: I was like, something was about this was ringing Star
Speaker 2: Wars for me as well. So I had the best
Speaker 2: diaries some of a couple of Star Wars best areas
Speaker 2: out anyway for the Monster fact I'm working on for
Speaker 2: this week, So I was like, what is it reminding
Speaker 2: me of? And I think it's reminding me of the
Speaker 2: of issue tib. This is a strange kind of Avian
Speaker 2: or beak looking creature that's in the background at Java's
Speaker 2: Palace but has also subsequently been used in like comics
Speaker 2: and on the Clone Wars and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: This was one of those where you showed me an
Speaker 3: image and I was like, oh, I have seen this before,
Speaker 3: but I can't remember from where. It's really kind of
Speaker 3: in the background, but yeah, Isshu Tube is like in
Speaker 3: Return of the Jedi. There I found a shot of
Speaker 3: him like back sort of behind Luke's head while Luke
Speaker 3: is pointing a blaster at Java.
Speaker 2: He's not, in my opinion, one of the more interesting
Speaker 2: Java's Palace aliens. Like I didn't have him as a figure,
Speaker 2: which you know, maybe that's because I didn't find him interesting,
Speaker 2: or maybe I don't find him interesting because I don't
Speaker 2: have the connection with the toy.
Speaker 3: Well, anyway, do you get back to the beaver in
Speaker 3: this drawing, which again is just a dull. It's interesting
Speaker 3: because he's not biting his testicles here. They're floating in
Speaker 3: the air behind him, as if the alien dog beaver
Speaker 3: has sort of projectile defecated them in the hunter's direction.
Speaker 3: You see, they're like a floating four leaf clover in
Speaker 3: the air.
Speaker 2: The four leafed aspect of the testicle is interesting, and
Speaker 2: I think that will be of note when we get
Speaker 2: into the actual anatomy of the lower regions of the beaver.
Speaker 3: Now, the examples don't stop there. We could go on
Speaker 3: naming many more, but I think you get the idea.
Speaker 3: There was one thing I just wanted to mention further
Speaker 3: because it's kind of interesting variation, and that's an illustration
Speaker 3: of a beaver hunt from the Queen Mary Salter, an
Speaker 3: early fourteenth century manuscript called Royal two B. And in
Speaker 3: this one, the beaver again looks nothing like a beaver,
Speaker 3: but in a different way. This time it's just a fox.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, would you say it's like a gray fox?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks like a fox.
Speaker 3: The hunter approaches with an axe propped up on his shoulder,
Speaker 3: and the beaver lies on his back, exposing his belly. Interesting.
Speaker 3: Apparently this was another common motif in these medieval illustrations
Speaker 3: of beavers, in addition to beaver's biting off their own testicles.
Speaker 3: Allegedly this would happen they would lie on their back
Speaker 3: and expose their belly after they had previously bitten them off,
Speaker 3: or after they had been harvested by a previous hunter
Speaker 3: and the beaver had survived. So the beaver here is
Speaker 3: revealing I haven't got what you're looking for. And then
Speaker 3: the hunter in this image, the hunter does look kind
Speaker 3: of annoyed, doesn't he. He's like, ah, what for real?
Speaker 3: He does?
Speaker 2: These guys hand up like ah, man chase this critter
Speaker 2: down in the woods and it doesn't have the goods anymore.
Speaker 3: But in the medieval lore of beaver hunts, the idea
Speaker 3: was that the beaver is clever, It knows what the
Speaker 3: hunter is looking for, and the beaver is thinking, oh,
Speaker 3: if I can show off that I don't have what
Speaker 3: the hunter needs, it won't kill me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now this is going to be interesting to reflect
Speaker 2: on it in a bed when we talk about beaver aggression,
Speaker 2: I can only imagine that this idea of the cornered
Speaker 2: beaver being a docile creature is an extreme exaggeration and inaccuracy.
Speaker 3: So this imagery is obviously a lot of fun. But
Speaker 3: rob would you, I think it's safe to say, I
Speaker 3: hope you'll agree that the chomping, off, dropping, shooting, projectile,
Speaker 3: pooping of testicles, none of this reflects any biological reality.
Speaker 3: This is not something beavers actually do, or ever actually did. Correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is, as we'll discuss in a bit, it's
Speaker 2: referred to as the vulgar error. At times, the error
Speaker 2: is based on some definite biological realities concerning the beaver.
Speaker 2: But they did not do this. Yeah, this is not
Speaker 2: something they did. This is not something I think any
Speaker 2: animal does. So before we get into exactly why that,
Speaker 2: we have to talk about what they were after with
Speaker 2: all of this. They were after castorium, the hunters were Yes,
Speaker 2: the hunters were after castorium, a product derived from beaver's
Speaker 2: I believe we mentioned this briefly in the last episode.
Speaker 2: But the basic reality here is beavers keep their hide
Speaker 2: waterproof via oily secretions from their cast or glands. Each
Speaker 2: beaver male or female has a pair of these along
Speaker 2: with a pair of anal glands. So so far castor
Speaker 2: glands anal glands one pair of each. This alone makes
Speaker 2: me think back to that sort of four clothed testicle
Speaker 2: that has dropped in one of those eliminated manuscript details
Speaker 2: we were discussing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the four sacks that's being chucked at the hunter.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now I found a great article of great short
Speaker 2: but detailed article with illustrations about the glands of the beaver.
Speaker 2: This is from nineteen seventy eight by Gerald E. Svenson,
Speaker 2: and it's titled cast and anal Glands of the Beaver
Speaker 2: and was published in the Journal of Mammalogy and it's
Speaker 2: on jay Store. It's free to access. If you really
Speaker 2: want to go in depth on this and see the
Speaker 2: very helpful illustrations, I definitely recommend it. But the author
Speaker 2: here says, quote, these glands liberate odoriferous products that may
Speaker 2: be used in the construction of scent mounts and in
Speaker 2: scent communication.
Speaker 3: This will sort of connect to what we talked about
Speaker 3: in the previous episode about the territoriality observed in the
Speaker 3: Eurasian beavers, where a family group would build a lodge
Speaker 3: in a dam, and it would sort of police the
Speaker 3: borders of its area to keep rivals out. And one
Speaker 3: of the things it would do in order to indicate
Speaker 3: the borders of its area is do scent marking. And
Speaker 3: often it was observed that along with the stick shaking behavior,
Speaker 3: when a beaver felt its territory might be being encroached
Speaker 3: on by another beaver from outside the group, it would
Speaker 3: engage in a additional scent marking. It would start to
Speaker 3: mark either with anal glands or castorium. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So both anal uncastor glands are in a cavity that
Speaker 2: the author here describes as being similar to a scrotum,
Speaker 2: and that quote. Testes lie anterior to the glands in
Speaker 2: the distal region of the Inguinol Canal. The testes protrude
Speaker 2: into the gland cavity in sexually mature males, but are
Speaker 2: separated from the glands by tissue of the terminal end
Speaker 2: of the Inginol canal and the lining of the gland cavity. Okay,
Speaker 2: I realize that's a lot and joe for you. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I included an illustration from this paper that I think
Speaker 2: makes a little more sense of this. This is one
Speaker 2: of two illustrations that the author provides, and a reminder,
Speaker 2: we're very much in the kloaca here.
Speaker 3: Right, So in the back of the beaver, sort of
Speaker 3: between the tail and the hind legs, we have the
Speaker 3: gland cavity and it contains these different organs, the anal
Speaker 3: gland and the castor gland.
Speaker 2: Yes, now he points out that anal glands are posterior
Speaker 2: to the castor glands, and each gland opens independently via ducts.
Speaker 2: So the castor glands, however, don't open directly to the outside. Instead,
Speaker 2: they hook up to the urethra and open into the
Speaker 2: beaver's cloaca. However, I imagine this will be key to
Speaker 2: what we're discussing here.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: Contraction of the muscle sheath also forces the papillary end
Speaker 2: of the anal gland to protrude from the cloaca. I
Speaker 2: do not think the same is true of the castor
Speaker 2: glands proper, but again I'm thinking of some of that. Basically,
Speaker 2: getting back to this idea of glands something like testicles,
Speaker 2: or they could be seen as testicles emerging from the
Speaker 2: cloaca of the beaver, and then it's not there again,
Speaker 2: you know. Common feature of these illustrations interesting though, the
Speaker 2: if I'm understanding everything correctly, these would be the anal glands,
Speaker 2: not the castor glands.
Speaker 3: But the illustrator doesn't understand it's either one. They think
Speaker 3: they're seeing gonads and then like they're there again, and
Speaker 3: then then they're gone right now.
Speaker 2: As for the castorium itself, I've seen it described as
Speaker 2: butter like. Svenson describes it as yellowish, but then it
Speaker 2: turns brown when exposed to air and sunlight. He shares
Speaker 2: that urine washes the cast or out in a quote
Speaker 2: unquote composite mixture that has a pungent odor. He writes,
Speaker 2: the secretions from both pairs of glands quote can be
Speaker 2: involved in scent mound construction, but that the method of
Speaker 2: producing these secretions differs based on what we've just discussed.
Speaker 2: So anal gland secretions are rubbed on something, they're expressed,
Speaker 2: and then the beaver you know, gets to rub it
Speaker 2: on the rock or the tree trunk, whatever, while castorium
Speaker 2: is essentially urinated out. So beaver's use castorum to mark
Speaker 2: territory and to waterproof their fur. But since ancient times,
Speaker 2: humans have found other uses for the substance to harvest it.
Speaker 2: It can be milked from a live animal apparently. I've
Speaker 2: read that they frequently expel it when handled, though again
Speaker 2: huge caveat here. Don't go trying to handle beavers. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure under what circumstances it is even recommended to
Speaker 2: do this, but leave it to the professionals. Professional beaver handlers,
Speaker 2: if they exist, are the ones that need to be
Speaker 2: doing this. Most of what we're talking about here, especially
Speaker 2: with these illustrations and historical collection of castorium, though, involves
Speaker 2: of course killing the beaver, and this requires the glands
Speaker 2: to be removed post mortem and then smoked for preservation. Joe,
Speaker 2: I've included a photo. You can find lots of photos
Speaker 2: of castorium that has been dried or smoked, and it
Speaker 2: essentially looks like some sort like you might imagine some
Speaker 2: sort of like dried up gland, some sort of like
Speaker 2: you know, mummified scrotum sort of idea here.
Speaker 3: You ever, like a drop a fingerling potato while you're
Speaker 3: preparing food and it rolls under the cabinet and you
Speaker 3: don't realize it's there, and then you find it a
Speaker 3: few months later when you're cleaning and it's all shriveled
Speaker 3: up into Yes, like a mummy of a potato. That's
Speaker 3: what it looks like.
Speaker 2: Yes. Now getting into this idea of the alleged testicle drop,
Speaker 2: this has been around for quite a while, and you
Speaker 2: find mention of it in the works of Plenty of
Speaker 2: the Elder from the Natural History, where of course we're
Speaker 2: always turning to Plenty to see what he had to say.
Speaker 2: And this is what he had to say in the
Speaker 2: Natural History. This is the Bostic translation quote the beavers
Speaker 2: of Yuxin, when they are closely pressed by danger, themselves
Speaker 2: cut off the same part, as they know that it
Speaker 2: is for this they are pursued. This substance is called
Speaker 2: castorian by the physicians. In addition to this, the bite
Speaker 2: of this animal is terrible. With its teeth, it can
Speaker 2: cut down trees on the banks of rivers, just as
Speaker 2: though with a knife. If they seize a man by
Speaker 2: any part of his body, they will never loose their
Speaker 2: hold until his bones are broken and crackle under their teeth.
Speaker 2: The tail is like that of a fish. In other
Speaker 2: parts of the body they resemble the otter. They are
Speaker 2: both of them aquatic animals, and both have hair softer
Speaker 2: than down.
Speaker 3: I love the description of the ferociousness here is sort
Speaker 3: of describing like the snapping turtle reputation. You know, it
Speaker 3: won't let go into lightning strikes. If you make a
Speaker 3: beaver mad, it's gonna bite until your bones are broken,
Speaker 3: and basically it's crunching on them like cereal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is an idea that I think for
Speaker 2: many of us might seem comical because we don't think
Speaker 2: of the beaver as being aggressive. And you know, as
Speaker 2: we discussed in the last episode, beavers, certainly when they're
Speaker 2: dealing with other beavers, they have an number of safeguards
Speaker 2: in place to prevent actual combat from occurring unless necessary.
Speaker 2: So you might be wondering, well, is there anything too,
Speaker 2: Is this just Plenty getting it wrong, or are beaver's
Speaker 2: truly this ferocious? Well, beaver attacks on humans are rare,
Speaker 2: but they are not unknown. Rabies can of course play
Speaker 2: a role, but it's not always a factor in these
Speaker 2: rare instances. We might laugh at Plenty's description, but beavers are,
Speaker 2: of course wild animals. They should be respected, and they
Speaker 2: can be put into situations where they then violently defend themselves.
Speaker 2: There has been at least one account of a fatal
Speaker 2: attack on a human in the last century, and I
Speaker 2: believe in that case it was a situation where they
Speaker 2: were bit by the beaver and then bled to death.
Speaker 2: Now there is a wonderful CBC Radio interview out there
Speaker 2: if you haven't heard it, from the early nineties and
Speaker 2: then I'm not sure the date is known, but it
Speaker 2: was rebroadcasting I think ninety seven, and that's the version
Speaker 2: that is archived with CBC Radio. It's apparently one of
Speaker 2: the most requested recordings from the CBC Radio archive. If
Speaker 2: you look for it, you can find it out there.
Speaker 2: It is action packed, it is a little bit funny.
Speaker 2: It's but it's also not for the weak of heart.
Speaker 3: This interview is riveting. A man describes I think he's
Speaker 3: trying to drive across a bridge in his truck when
Speaker 3: during a heavy downpour, or maybe right after one, and
Speaker 3: the bridge is sort of flooded. There's some water standing
Speaker 3: between the concrete barriers on the sides of the bridge,
Speaker 3: and it appears that a beaver has taken up residence
Speaker 3: on the bridge. It's sort of swimming back and forth
Speaker 3: in the water. The man gets out of his truck
Speaker 3: because he is afraid he has accidentally hit the beaver
Speaker 3: with his truck, and when he gets out, the beaver
Speaker 3: angrily latches onto his leg and proceeds to attack him
Speaker 3: multiple times. He sustains. It seems not life threatening necessarily,
Speaker 3: but pretty serious sounding injuries, like the beaver bites and
Speaker 3: it bites hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like bites him like eleven times, and he's just
Speaker 2: fighting it off, trying to get back in his truck
Speaker 2: and drive off. I think he has to hit it
Speaker 2: with a propane tank at some point. And yeah, it's
Speaker 2: a violent account, though I have to stress that the
Speaker 2: man telling the tale, he has a lot of sympathy
Speaker 2: for the beaver, and at the end of it, he's like,
Speaker 2: you know, it's my fault. I'm the one who I
Speaker 2: thought I hit it, and I should never have gotten
Speaker 2: out of the car. It was just it was just
Speaker 2: out of the truck. It was just defending itself. But
Speaker 2: it really drives home that, yes, if the beaver is cornered,
Speaker 2: the beaver can be ferocious. Those teeth can dig into you,
Speaker 2: and you can easily see how in another situation, if
Speaker 2: the beaver had got him in just a few different places,
Speaker 2: he could have easily bled to death before he was
Speaker 2: able to drive himself to the hospital. I also like
Speaker 2: how the individual in this story he's quick to add like,
Speaker 2: I've been bit by just about every animal out there,
Speaker 2: but I'd never been bit or i'd been attacked by it.
Speaker 2: Just about every animal out there been attacked by a wolverine.
Speaker 3: One imagines a moose, but never a beaver. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: I am, like you said, impressed by he holds no
Speaker 3: malice for the beaver even after the attack. I think
Speaker 3: he just keeps saying he was on defense.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So so definitely sneep that out of you if
Speaker 2: you're interested. But back to the Plenty document here. One
Speaker 2: of the notes on this text points out that Plenty
Speaker 2: derived this description from the physician Sextius, and the text
Speaker 2: goes under remark on the vulgar error here and mentions
Speaker 2: the work of the French naturalist Cuvier.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: Cuvier remarks that when the gland becomes distended with this secretion,
Speaker 2: the animal may probably get rid of it by rubbing
Speaker 2: the part against a stone or tree, and in this
Speaker 2: way leave the cast door for the hunters, thus giving
Speaker 2: rise to the vulgar error. Now, this is interesting because
Speaker 2: going back to what we just discussed, it discussed disgusted. Sorry,
Speaker 2: it's easy to get the too confused here. What we're
Speaker 2: talking about here, what they're rubbing, would be the anal
Speaker 2: gland secretions, not the cast door. But still, you can
Speaker 2: imagine this situation where you'd have something distended from the
Speaker 2: lower end of the beaver, something that may look from
Speaker 2: a pair of glands, that may look like testicles. Here's
Speaker 2: this beaver going up or rubbing itself against a stone
Speaker 2: or a piece of a tree branch or something, and
Speaker 2: then oh low and behold, whatever was protruding is gone.
Speaker 2: This could be the thing that quote gives rise to
Speaker 2: the vulgar error.
Speaker 3: Yep, that does make sense, and it connects again to
Speaker 3: the idea of the scent markings being territorial boundaries in nature,
Speaker 3: you know, trying to ward off encroachments by other beavers
Speaker 3: often so it makes a lot of sense that, say,
Speaker 3: if a hunter is coming into a beaver's family group territory,
Speaker 3: the hunter might see it marking.
Speaker 2: Now Plenty also mentions the beaver again in the Natural
Speaker 2: History when discussing the sea cow, which he says has
Speaker 2: a similar level of intelligence and a similar alleged defense
Speaker 2: capability quote. And this is talking about the sea cow.
Speaker 2: It vomits forth its gall which is useful for many
Speaker 2: purposes in medicine, also the rennet, which serves as a
Speaker 2: remedy in epilepsy, for it is well aware that it
Speaker 2: is hunted. For these substances. Theophrastus informs us that lizards
Speaker 2: also cast their skins like the serpent, and instantly devour them,
Speaker 2: thus depriving us of a powerful remedy for epilepsy. He
Speaker 2: says too, that the bite of the lizard is fatal
Speaker 2: in Greece but harmless in Italy.
Speaker 3: Okay, now.
Speaker 2: There is some merit to what Plenty is saying here,
Speaker 2: generally because certain creatures are thought to leave behind parts
Speaker 2: of their body or vomit something as a distractor for predators.
Speaker 2: We also know very well that not just humans but
Speaker 2: animal predators sometimes target specific organs of their prey. But
Speaker 2: what he's reporting about the beaver here specifically is not true.
Speaker 2: But I also find this interesting. This is a tangent
Speaker 2: the idea that the lizard eats its skin after it
Speaker 2: sheds it, despite us to be like, Nope, you're not
Speaker 2: getting in your hands on my sweet skin when I mean,
Speaker 2: in reality, we know that many lizards, including my son's gecko,
Speaker 2: consumes its own sheddings because like, you're not going to
Speaker 2: waste that good stuff.
Speaker 3: Of course not, nature is full of disgusting efficiencies. But
Speaker 3: to add a little bit to what you said a
Speaker 3: minute ago, it is absolutely true that, yeah, there are
Speaker 3: many animals that will self amputate when threatened to buy
Speaker 3: a predator or under various stressful situations. This is a
Speaker 3: strategy known as autotomy. A a u t o t
Speaker 3: o m y comes from the Greek for self cutting
Speaker 3: or self severing. And yeah, you can often see it
Speaker 3: like in lizards, where yes, if a predator, say, grabs
Speaker 3: hold of their tail, the lizard will just release the
Speaker 3: tail from their body. The predator can have it, which
Speaker 3: has a double effect that's helpful for the lizard's survival.
Speaker 3: For one thing, if it is grabbed by the tail
Speaker 3: and then releases the tail, it has now escaped the
Speaker 3: grasp of the predator. But the other thing is by
Speaker 3: giving the predator a sort of consolation prize, it's almost
Speaker 3: like compromising with them. It's like, well, you can have
Speaker 3: this much, but you can't have my whole life.
Speaker 2: It's also worth noting that I think, I mean, all
Speaker 2: the examples of this that come to mind are essentially
Speaker 2: ejections releases. They do not involve like active severing of
Speaker 2: a creature's own body with its teeth or its claws
Speaker 2: or that.
Speaker 3: Sort of thing. Well, yeah, that's a good question. All
Speaker 3: of the ones I can think of, having read of
Speaker 3: read about before, yeah, just seem to be reject severe
Speaker 3: often of like a tail or a leg or something,
Speaker 3: or a claw. But that is a good question. There
Speaker 3: are there cases where the animal has to work on
Speaker 3: its own autonomy, where it essentially must do the severing
Speaker 3: itself with its teeth or claws or other or something
Speaker 3: something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so if the beaver were to sever its own testicles,
Speaker 2: it would be a really un alarming behavioral development. I
Speaker 2: can't imagine a situation where this where a creature would
Speaker 2: develop it like evolved to have this as an actual
Speaker 2: feature of like dropping their testicles, like ejecting them, because
Speaker 2: you know, even examples like certain scorpions that eject part
Speaker 2: of their own tail and in doing so eject their
Speaker 2: anus and then can no longer poop. As we've discussed
Speaker 2: and then just kind of swell up with poop for
Speaker 2: the rest of their lives. If memory serves, they can
Speaker 2: still reproduce. They're not giving up reproduction, that vital act
Speaker 2: of any species in order to protect itself.
Speaker 3: I did think of a possible counter example. I wish
Speaker 3: I had read up on this deeply before we started recording,
Speaker 3: But I believe there are cases where crabs will practice autonomy,
Speaker 3: and that will involve the like cutting or pulling of
Speaker 3: the autonomized claw with the other claw, so that is active,
Speaker 3: like the alleged beaver testicle biting.
Speaker 2: Ah, we'll leave it to crabs to do it that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe we'll have to come back to that in
Speaker 3: listener mail or something.
Speaker 2: All right, now, coming back to kastorium. The origins of
Speaker 2: human uses for this substance are, of course lost to time.
Speaker 2: They emerge from somewhere in the vast period of time
Speaker 2: during which our ancestors determined how best to process and
Speaker 2: use an animal's body for resources that range from like
Speaker 2: the really practical like meat and materials, things that are
Speaker 2: more cultural like decorations and adornments, and also that often
Speaker 2: mercy area of medicinal and magical properties. In a given substance,
Speaker 2: but still we have some early sources to consider. Now,
Speaker 2: apparently the ancient archaeological evidence of castorium usage by humans
Speaker 2: takes us back a good six thousand years. I was
Speaker 2: looking at a paper titled Ancient Throwing Dart reveals first
Speaker 2: archaeological evidence of Castorium published in the Journal of Archaeological
Speaker 2: Science Reports. This was in June of twenty twenty one
Speaker 2: by Hellwig at All and basically this throwing dart in
Speaker 2: particular was found in the Yukon territory and it featured
Speaker 2: a red orange residue that, upon analysis contained the various
Speaker 2: organic ingredients and materials that matched up with beaver castorium.
Speaker 2: The authors point out that the substance was seemingly used
Speaker 2: to toughen wood by ancient hunters, though baiting and medicinal
Speaker 2: uses among later First Nations people were also recorded. The
Speaker 2: Taltan people in particular were said to use it on
Speaker 2: the heated wood of their bows and kept some on
Speaker 2: their person in a small container of like wood or
Speaker 2: horn or bone. So it sounds like it was something
Speaker 2: that was probably used to like to maintain your weapons,
Speaker 2: to maintain your hunting implements.
Speaker 3: That's a kind of oily treatment for the wood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, which, you know, this to a certain extent,
Speaker 2: I guess kind of reminds one of how the beavers
Speaker 2: use it to help and use that special claw comb
Speaker 2: of theirs to comb it into their fur, in addition
Speaker 2: to using it to mark their scent.
Speaker 3: But in the fur it's I believe it's supposed to
Speaker 3: have some waterproofing purposes.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Now, Sarah Lohman in a twenty seventeen article
Speaker 2: for Mental Flows, points it's a nice overview that points
Speaker 2: to a number of different additional alleged uses for a gastorium.
Speaker 2: For instance, I believe even in Roman times, it was
Speaker 2: thought that you could use like a smoke inhalation based
Speaker 2: version of it for as an abortive medicine. Twelfth century
Speaker 2: mystic Hildegarde von Bingen wrote that it could be powdered
Speaker 2: and put into a wine to reduce fever, and then
Speaker 2: in colonial America it was used for all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 2: It was used as both the means of staving off sleep,
Speaker 2: you know, sort of like your trucker speed, I guess,
Speaker 2: but it was also used to encourage sleep, you know,
Speaker 2: having a little insomnia, well her own castorium. It was
Speaker 2: used as a kind of brain booster. You know, you're
Speaker 2: feeling like you need to up your game. Well, you
Speaker 2: can't just grab some pills, some brain booster pills at
Speaker 2: the grocery store. You need to go get yourself some
Speaker 2: castorium from the local apothecary.
Speaker 3: They must have gotten really smart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was used to treat colic, to treat gout,
Speaker 2: and to treat toothaches and earaches.
Speaker 3: Now I got interested in the idea of the use
Speaker 3: of castorium allegedly to treat pain because of something I read. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: I was not able to find a very clear answer
Speaker 3: on this. But what I read was that I was
Speaker 3: looking at a book called Aspirin and the Salicylates by
Speaker 3: KDE Rainsford, published in twenty thirteen. Quote. Salicylates have also
Speaker 3: been identified in beaver castor ie of scent glands from
Speaker 3: where it is secreted instead of the via the usual
Speaker 3: urinary route. The salicilits are probably metabolic transformation products from
Speaker 3: vegetable sources in the diet of the beaver. So that
Speaker 3: kind of interested me because salacillates are related to the
Speaker 3: active ingredient in aspirin. Aspirin is, of course, it's a
Speaker 3: nonsteroidal anti inflammatory drug often used to reduce fever and
Speaker 3: treat pain inflammation, and this active ingredient, aspirin acetyl salicilic acid,
Speaker 3: is derived from a precursor found in the bark of
Speaker 3: the willow tree, which of course is something that beavers
Speaker 3: tend to chew and eat a lot of. So this
Speaker 3: chemical relationship with the active ingredient in a common nonsteroidal
Speaker 3: anti inflammatory and pain reliever made me wonder if there
Speaker 3: could be some kind of connection there, like maybe this
Speaker 3: downstream animal product that's derived from this original plant molecule.
Speaker 3: I wondered if that could be playing a role in
Speaker 3: castorium actually having an anti inflammatory effect or treating pain.
Speaker 3: But I could not find anything solid to back up
Speaker 3: that connection. So I don't know if there's actually anything
Speaker 3: to that, but my curiosity is raised here.
Speaker 2: M Yeah, that's interesting. Now, outside of alleged medicinal properties,
Speaker 2: it also has a long history of being used as
Speaker 2: a like a just for its scent and as a
Speaker 2: flavor enhancer. Loman notes, as others have noted in these
Speaker 2: other sources, we've looked at that castorium, once processed you know, smoked,
Speaker 2: were derived into a tincture. It can be used to
Speaker 2: enhance flavors, particularly to enhance flavors of raspberry and strawberry
Speaker 2: to replicate a kind of vanilla flavor, and it's also
Speaker 2: been used to give perfumes a sort of leathery odor.
Speaker 2: And I guess all this shouldn't be too surprising, again
Speaker 2: realizing that the compounds in castorium are ultimately derived from
Speaker 2: leaves and tree bark, so it shouldn't be completely shocking.
Speaker 2: Now it's still technically an FDA approved natural flavoring in
Speaker 2: the United States, but it's rarely used and was far
Speaker 2: more commonly used as a flavor enhancer in the early
Speaker 2: twentieth century. Now you've probably if you've looked around at
Speaker 2: anything about this, you may have come across this. There
Speaker 2: is a curarently a Swedish spirit called Beaverhoot that uses
Speaker 2: castorium translated as beaver shout. Some adventurous imbibers have sought
Speaker 2: it out. You'll find a number of essentially I guess
Speaker 2: spirit and alcohol bloggers out there talking about their experiences
Speaker 2: with it or doing videos, some of these with kind
Speaker 2: of crude titles, but I found a really nice one
Speaker 2: on a blog from an individual named Dolly Jorgensen at
Speaker 2: Dolly dot jorgensenweb dot net, who has like a very nice,
Speaker 2: historically driven post on the subject that is again far
Speaker 2: classier than what I was seeing in other places online.
Speaker 2: I just want to read a quick quote from Dolly
Speaker 2: Jorgenson about trying out beaver shout quote. The first flavor
Speaker 2: was similar to oak cured whiskey, but then the musk
Speaker 2: comes out. It's a hard to describe taste, but I
Speaker 2: imagine that it's what traditional male musky colan would taste like.
Speaker 2: It was not particularly strong, however, so it seemed pleasant
Speaker 2: enough to consume most of the shot. An hour later, however,
Speaker 2: I had a different opinion. Is the castorium sense started
Speaker 2: to seep out through my skin. Literally, my pores started
Speaker 2: to extrude the musky smell.
Speaker 3: Okay, I mean that's a commercial basically.
Speaker 2: So I thought that was telling because the way the
Speaker 2: author describes it here, it's probably or at least in
Speaker 2: this case, and I guess it depends on who's making
Speaker 2: the liquor and so forth, but it sounds like it's
Speaker 2: more tolerable than you might imagine, but there being this
Speaker 2: kind of like after effect to consuming it. If any
Speaker 2: adventurous sorts out there listening to this episode have experience
Speaker 2: with beaver shout, do write in. We would love to
Speaker 2: hear from you. We'd love to hear your impression of this.
Speaker 3: You know, this reminds me of the time we talked
Speaker 3: about the liquor that had a human toe in it
Speaker 3: and then we heard from multiple listeners said they drank it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. There was another blog post that I was
Speaker 2: looking at where the individual was like, Hey, it's kind
Speaker 2: of a hobby of mine to find various alcohols that
Speaker 2: have something organic in them, something some like part and
Speaker 2: then try it out. And you see this in different cultures,
Speaker 2: like the idea is like some sort of alcohol and
Speaker 2: it has like, I don't know, a snake and it
Speaker 2: a scorpion in it, that sort of thing. But in
Speaker 2: this case, the castor glands of a beaver are used
Speaker 2: to create a unique spirit. I also looked around. I
Speaker 2: was like, maybe somebody's making a cocktail with this. Maybe
Speaker 2: there's a beaver shout cocktail out there. I could not
Speaker 2: find one. So if mixologists out there are figuring out
Speaker 2: a way to sort of tame the flavor of beaver
Speaker 2: shout and like sort of manipulate it into a more
Speaker 2: refined concoction. I have not found evidence of it of it.
Speaker 2: I went to imbub magazine and looked around for castorium
Speaker 2: and that nothing was coming up. And that's the one
Speaker 2: place I would expect, like some profettional mixologist out there
Speaker 2: has has whipped this up, you know, just on just
Speaker 2: as a challenge. But I saw no evidence of it.
Speaker 2: Maybe in Sweden, maybe it's like a special thing. You
Speaker 2: need to like look to Swedish high end bars to
Speaker 2: find this.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe you got to ask beer get where to
Speaker 3: find it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, well, I believe we're going to close
Speaker 2: out our two parter on the beaver here. But this
Speaker 2: was a fun one. This is one that initially I
Speaker 2: was thinking we would discuss these some of these images
Speaker 2: of the beaver in an episode that looked at other
Speaker 2: inaccurate depictions of animals from various bestiaries. And then it
Speaker 2: quickly became obvious that this was an entire episode, and
Speaker 2: then that it was actually a part one and a
Speaker 2: part two. I have so much more respect and admiration
Speaker 2: for the weird and wonderful beaver.
Speaker 3: Now, how can you not? I mean, if you don't,
Speaker 3: they'll shake a stick at you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right, We're going to go and close
Speaker 2: it out here, but we'd love to hear from everyone
Speaker 2: out there if you have thoughts, experiences is concerning the
Speaker 2: beaver right in. If you want to check out other
Speaker 2: episodes we've done in the past, We've covered a lot
Speaker 2: of curious animals over the years, kind of composing our
Speaker 2: own festi area in many respects. On the Stuff to
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind podcast, you can find core episodes of
Speaker 2: that on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind podcast feed. On Mondays we do listener mail.
Speaker 2: On Wednesday's we do a short form artifact or monster fact,
Speaker 2: and on Fridays we set aside most series concerns to
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird movie on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our audio producer JJ Pousway. If you
Speaker 3: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 3: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
Speaker 3: for the future, or just to say hello, you can
Speaker 3: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 3: dot com.
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