Record Beaver Dam spotted from space - PHOTOS

The dam spans 2,788-foot (850-meter) and has been seen by NASA from space.

Jean Thie said: "I couldn't believe it when I saw it - it's a vast, vast area. There may be longer dams out there, but this, by far, is the largest I have seen so far."

"It might be hard to believe, but there are a few things that are visible from space, and beaver dams are among the few animal-made structures that are," said Thie.

"It would not have been possible to view it without something like Google Earth," said Thie.

Wood Buffalo National Park spokesman Mike Keizer said the dam sits in a corner of a park "the size of Switzerland" in an area surrounded by heavily forested marshland. Using past NASA images and park aerial photography, the ecologist Thie worked out that the beavers began their work four decades ago and that the monster construction must have been worked on by several generations.

North American beavers build dams to create deep, still pools of water to protect against predators, and to float food and building materials. A 652-meter structure in Three Forks in the US state of Montana previously held the record for world's largest beaver dam.


/Sky News/

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