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 fossil. The first of July saw a number of new laws and policies go into effect including a new symbol for the state.
So what is it? Meet the giant beaver, a prehistoric species as big as a black bear which has now been bestowed the honor by Minnesota.
This massive, ancient cousin of our modern beavers roamed Minnesota's waterways over 10,000 years ago, and more recently two nearly complete skeletons were unearthed in both Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Minnesota Science Museum Paleontologist Alex Hastings played a role in the decades-long fight to make the move official.
"So there was one big effort made back in 1988 and then a local representative, Rep. (Chris) Swedzinski was looking to bring something like this forward as well, based on some of his student constituents," says Hastings. "So people definitely have had this on their minds here."
He added that that quirky choice aims to connect Minnesotans to the state's deep natural history and the choice is supported by Indigenous communities.
"We ended up getting letters of support both in 2024 and this year in 2025 from the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council for specifically the choice of the giant beaver as a state fossil," Hastings explained. "We also are one of the only state symbols out there to include indigenous translations in the state symbol as well."
The House State Government Finance and Policy Committee also added an amendment for “or Copa in Dakota and Amik in Ojibwe” to describe the animal that existed when the first people were settling into what became Minnesota.
The fight to make the giant beaver the states official state fossil goes back to the 1980's when a group of third graders first proposed the idea.
This large, beaver-like animal roamed the metro area and southern Minnesota during the last ice age. This rodent of unusual size inhabited waterways and the developing glacial lakes as the ice receded across the state. The last-known Castoroides ohioensis lived in North America about 10,150 years ago. The known region in Minnesota where they were found is pretty limited so far, just in the Twin Cities area and Freeborn County.