[1][2] Dipoides were approximately three to four times larger than modern Canadian beavers - ranging from 90 - 120KG.

However an excavation of a site that was once a marsh, in Ellesmere Island, showed signs that they dined on bark and young trees, like modern beavers.

[3] Other research suggests that the building of dams by Dipoides started as a side effect to the consumption of wood and bark, and was a specialization that evolved for cold weather survival due to the earth's cooling during the late Neogene period.

[4] Natalia Rybczynski, of the Canadian Museum of Nature, analyzed the teeth, and wood chips, of modern beavers, and Dipoides.

Rybczynski argues that eating bark and building dams are unlikely to have evolved twice, so modern beavers and Dipoides shared a wood-eating common ancestor, 24 million years ago.