You can’t. Beavers are ‘monomorphs’ which means on the outside the sexes look the same in every way including size. The exception is during kit rearing where the mother beaver has visible teats. This is how we discovered our mother beaver had a distinctive marking in her tail. Our father beaver has always been bigger but that is probably just means he is older than any of the others.
4 comments on “How can you tell male and female beavers apart?”
SHELDON BEAVER
November 26, 2017 at 1:18 pmI love Beaver People
Sheldon
April 5, 2018 at 5:53 pmIt is so sad that 100’s of millions Beavers were kill since the Europeans came too N A.
Taquka’asinaq
March 30, 2019 at 11:10 amYeah I find that interesting that you cannot tell them apart. I live in the city although my neighborhood is just buzzing with wildlife. I have been following this family of 5 beavers since the fall before the river froze over. Now they are finally coming out of the lodge. There are 2 adults and 3 kits. There will for sure be more kits coming this spring. Since I’ve been seeing these guys, I’ve always wondered which adult is the male and which is the female. Though I have noticed some facial differences between the two. One has a longer and narrower face while the other has a chubbier face; does this perhaps mean anything?
heidi08
April 1, 2019 at 7:03 amIf the female is breastfeeding young kits she has visible teats that you should be able to see if she reaches for a branch or something. That’s how we knew who our mom beaver was, hopefully then she’ll have some kind of other feature you can spot. Ours as a notch in her tail. Good luck! You must be in the south? Because our kits didn’t come until June or so?