We all know Buc-ee's is the most famous beaver in the state of Texas. Scientists know this, too, and showed their love for the brand in a unique way.
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin rediscovered a new species of ancient beaver and named it after the beloved gas station icon, the university announced this week. The beaver, Anchitheriomys buceei, was given the nickname A. buccei in honor of Buc-ee's!
Researcher Steve May got the idea while driving past one of the state's many Buc-ee's billboards in 2020. One of the signs, which reads "This Is Beaver Country," caught May's eye. "I thought, 'Yeah, it is beaver country, and it has been for millions of years," he said in the news release.
A. buccei inhabited the Lone Star State 15 million years ago. To the untrained eye, they don't look too different from an average beaver, but the new species is about 30% larger. "The UT collections includes A. buceei fossils from six Texas sites," the press release states. "But most of what researchers know about the new fossil beaver comes from a unique partial skull from Burkeville, Texas. The fossil is a fusion of bone and brain cast that was created when sediment naturally seeped into the beaver’s brain cavity eons ago, creating a rock replica of the brain as the specimen fossilized."
While X-ray images helped scientists confirm the new species of beaver, they weren't the first to discover it. A team of Texas paleontologists collected the skull back in 1941. "One of them, Curtis Hesse, a museum curator at Texas A&M University, said in notes that he intended to name it a new species," researchers said. "However, Hesse died in 1945 before he could complete his study and publish his findings. Eighty years later, May and (Matthew) Brown, with the help of new technology and a better understanding of the fossil record of beavers, picked up where Hesse left off."
Buc-ee's founder and CEO Arch "Beaver" Aplin III was over the moon to learn about the new scientific discovery. "Buc-ee’s was founded in 1982, but we may need to rethink our beginnings," he said.