The now-extinct giant beaver once lived from Florida to Alaska. It weighed as much as 100 kilograms, roughly the same as a small black bear. Credit: Luke Dickey/Western University, Author provided The ...

Milk, blueberry muffins, honeycrisp apples, “Grace,” ice hockey, L’etoile du Nord and “Hail! Minnesota.” Each is among 20 state symbols in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. One more to add to that? The state ...

It’s official: Minnesota’s state fossil is the giant beaver, an extinct creature the size of a small bear that roamed around the Twin Cities more than 10,000 years ago. Lawmakers had approved the new ...

From left to right: Paleontologist Alex Hastings holds up a fossil of a giant beaver's head on Sunday at Bad Weather Brewing in St. Paul.

The giant beaver won, turning fossil enthusiasts into fossil lobbyists. It took a bipartisan effort this year to tuck the fossil proposal into the bipartisan funding bill that will ensure state ...

A giant beaver skull, right, compared to a modern beaver skull at the State Museum in Albany. A female, left, and male specimen of Labrador ducks at the State Museum in Albany. Only 25 specimens of ...

Oregon wildlife officials are conducting a new statewide survey of beavers and their habitat, part of a plan to protect and recover the animals. The plan’s success largely depends on whether the state ...