Fossil evidence suggests they may have lived in family groups like modern beavers and employed a K reproductive strategy instead of the normal r-strategy of most rodents.

This identification was influenced by the surroundings where the "screws" were situated; the deposits in which they occur were laid down in immense freshwater lakes in the Miocene Epoch, 20 million years ago.

In 1892, Dr. Barbour proposed that the devil's corkscrews were the burrows of large rodents, and Latinized the name to the ichnofossil name Daimonhelix, Daimonelix, or Daemonelix (all these spellings are found) and classified them by shape and size.

Barbour also states in this essay that the discovery of a fossilized beaver was not proof of the origin of Daemonelix, as there has also been found the bones of 'a mammal as large as a mouse'...

Again, this suggests that the Devil's Corkscrew being the result of the burrowing of the Palaeocastor was not universally accepted in the scientific community as late as the second decade of the 20th century.

The scratches which were previously misinterpreted as claw marks are also strong evidence of the existence of Palaeocastor in contrast to modern Castor.