The spirals were as thick as an arm and some of them were taller than a man.
Not knowing what they were, the ranchers began calling them devils corkscrew.
Barbour found that the spirals were actually sand-filled tubes with the outer walls made of some white fibrous material.
Barbour knew they were fossils but of what he wasnt sure.
He named themDaemonelix, which was just the Latin equivalent of its local name, devils corkscrew.
The year following the discovery, Barbour put forward his first theory.
But it was the rodent bones that finally undid the fossil plant theory.
The bones found within the corkscrews belonged to the rodents who dug them and became entombed within.
But Barbour wasnt going to give up on his fossil plant theory just as yet.
ThePalaeocastorwere about the size of woodchucks or smaller.
A couple of feet underground, the burrow extends into several side chambers for sleeping and rearing the young.
Some of these living chambers contain low pockets that may have served as sinks for water or dedicated latrines.
Some burrows also contain highly inclined living chambers which may have kept the sleepingPalaeocastorssafe from flooding.
Daemonelix burrows at the Nebraska State Museum of Natural History.
Photo credit:James St. John/Flickr
Photo credit:www.digitalhistoryproject.com
Fossil of Palaeocastor.
Photo credit:Ghedoghedo/Wikimedia
This fossil depicts a beaver in natural cast of the burrow it had made.
Photo credit:Claire H/Wikimedia
Sources:Wikipedia/Natural History Magazine/NPCA/Earth Archives
