A Real Baby Boomer

Since my last post mentioned aplodontia young-ins as possible targets of tunnel terrors, I thought you might like to see a juvie mountain beaver. Aka - a baby boomer.

Or, in this case, more of a kid boomer.

So, below are 12 cam trap photos from another aplodontia burrow along the Yuba River.

An adult made the first appearance at 4:22pm:







But a couple of days later, at 7:43am, a much smaller aplo shyly peeked out:







Aplodontias only mate once per year, and females typically synchronize locally and have 2-3 altricial young just before spring (i.e., pinkies!), timed to roughly coincide with the seasonally sprouting fresh, nutritious buds and leaves.

Young aplos wean in 6 weeks, emerge from Mom's burrow to forage after about 2-1/2 months, and reach 70% of their adult size and weight at ~ 4 months old.

At a year they're full adults:  2 pounds and as big as a football.

And given those metrics, and the size ratio of the adult and juvenile in all these equally-cropped photos, I'd say this baby boomer is getting near that 4 month mark.

Junior also popped up in full sun at 2:24pm the next day to munch a leaf and look around.









And the adult - likely Mom since aplodontias generally live solo - showed her face one last time the next morning at 6:30am to block up the hole.





Bye, bye until next year, boomers. Watch out for those weasels.

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References:

• Nature of a Man (this blog) - The Alder Host
• Nature of a Man (this blog) - Boomer the Bulldozer 
• Nature of a Man (this blog) - From A to Zapus 
• E. W. Jameson Jr. and Hans J. Peeters - Mammals of California
• Mark Elbroch & Kurt Rinehart - Behavior of North American Mammals
• Camera Trap Codger - Camera Trapping Workshop
• Camera Trap Codger - Errant Mountain Beaver
• Wikipedia - Mountain beaver
• Wikipedia - Keystone species

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