By popular demand, here is a more-detailed thread about tail scars/wounds in beavers.

Some beaver tails can be pretty gnarly. But they can be viewed as a scrapbook detailing all the major confrontations a beaver has endured in their lifetime. Most wounds are the result of beavers biting the tails of each other when they fight over territory. Except they don't use their fists (surprise!), they use their teeth!

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Another new paper this week from the B.V.R. (Beavers.Voyageurs.Research), in collaboration with my colleagues from the Norwegian Beaver Project.

Using tail scars in beavers, we examined what factors influence how much beavers fight. Both species of beavers are highly territorial, using scent marking behavior to stake out their claims. But confrontations still occur, often leading to outright battles. Evidence of fights can be easily seen on their tails, often with distinctive incisor pattern (see Fig 4a,c).

BREAKING: obscure federal Office of Calligraphy internal memo leaked on how furloughed employees can make ends meet during the shutdown! Some examples include:
1. Consider selling a kidney or an eyeball on the black market. God gave you 2 as insurance policy for these times! 2. Finish writing next installment of G.R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones) books on a 10-day contract. Only hard if you don't apply yourself!
3. The 2019 federal Child Tax Credit is now $2000 per child! Better get busy, wink, wink! (see #6 for more info)