Most of the time beaver grooming is a solitary affair. It's not that beavers are anti-social - not within the family unit at least. They keep very close company and seem to like it. But when it comes to actually touching and interacting with the other guy, that's not quite so common. If a beaver gets too close to another beaver it's more likely that one of the beavers will rebuff the other or simply leave.
This photo shows two beavers, a yearling and a kit, in the process of grooming each other. The kit swam to where the yearling was already engaged in a grooming session and pushed it's way into the action. The yearling didn't miss a beat and switched to grooming the kit, which started to return the favour. This went on for about 5 minutes. Then the embrace ended and each beaver continued to groom itself.
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