I thought castoreum was just something Trump smeared on his skin to stay orange, but today I learned that the "sticky orange secretion produced in the anal sacs of beavers" was also on a 6,000-year-old feathered dart discovered in the Canadian Yukon.
From Live Science:
At first, scientists thought that the residue on the dart might be red ochre — a natural clay pigment — or adhesive colored by ochre, as ochre-tinted spruce resin was previously identified in other artifacts from this Yukon region. Using surgical tools, the researchers carefully removed small samples of the residue for chemical analysis, and found that the residue came from beavers' back ends.
Beavers' castor sacs lie between the base of the tail and the pelvis; they are located internally near the cloaca, and beavers secrete paste from these glands for scent marking, the researchers reported. When fresh, "castoreum is a sticky, semi-liquid paste and becomes solid with a waxy to resinous texture as it dries," according to the study.
[image: By H. Zell – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0]
