About: Dipoides

Dipoides is an extinct genus of beaver-grouped rodents. Dipoides were about two thirds the size of modern Canadian beavers. Where modern beavers have square chisel shaped teeth, Dipoides teeth were rounded. However an excavation of a site that was once a marsh, in Ellesmere Island, showed signs that they dined on bark and young trees, like modern beavers. The excavation seemed to show that, like modern beavers, Dipoides dammed streams. Other research suggests that the building of dams by Dipoides started as a side effect to the consumption of wood and bark, and was a specialization that evolved for cold weather survival due to the earth's cooling during the late Neogene period.