Fast-food mascots come in every shape and size, but personally, I like to see ’em with a little girth. Big Boy’s belly isn’t just his body type—it is proof to road-weary travelers that the burger he hawks is worth eating in large quantities. Ronald McDonald is unfortunately quite ectomorphic, but by his side is Grimace, whose portly pear shape signals to all that at least one guy on the team gets high on his own supply. 

For more than forty years, Texas’s most famous fast-food mascot, Buc-ee the beaver, was a beefy guy. He welcomed us into his fabulous restrooms with a beaming, buck-toothed grin and a midsection you just wanted to wrap your arms around. He seemed soft, even as the bronze statue out front at every Buc-ee’s location. Around four feet tall, Buc-ee stood with his arms outstretched, his eyes gazing upward to meet those of every customer, letting us know we can consume a lot of calories there.

Recently, however, travelers have started to notice a different Buc-ee’s statue in front of some locations. He is slimmer in the waistline, and the energy in his eyes seems chemically induced. (Perhaps the result of shotgunning too many 5-Hour Energy drinks?) Despite his apparent weight loss, his hands are thicker and eerily human in shape; he even appears to have developed opposable thumbs. Whereas the original Buc-ee wore a plain, baggy T-shirt, this new one is wearing a cropped sweatshirt with his own face on it. His arms are open, but not outstretched; it looks less like he’s beckoning a taller person in for a hug and more like he’s staring up at the heavens, screaming “Why?!”

Reactions to this svelte stand-in have been mostly negative (“What did they do to my beautiful boy?” one video is captioned), but Jeff Nadalo, a Buc-ee’s attorney and spokesperson, defended the choice. “Beavers have been evolving in Texas for 15 million years, starting with Anchitheriomys buceei 15 million years ago, to the North American beaver, to Buc-ee, who has been evolving since 1982,” Nadalo told a Chron.com reporter. He’s not wrong: Texans love Buc-ee’s so much that last year, after UT scientists discovered an ancient beaver fossil, they named it in honor of the bewhiskered mascot. 

But this latest change happened practically overnight, far too quickly to be chalked up to evolution. There has to be something more going on. A 42-year-old beaver is the equivalent of a 255-year-old human, so Buc-ee is long overdue for his midlife crisis. Perhaps he felt stagnated by the monotony of his everyday life, greeting visitors, expanding his empire, and cleaning the restrooms. Perhaps he longed for the energy and purpose of his youth. Perhaps he just longed for the waistline of a younger, more vivacious rodent. 

Here are seven theories that could explain the drastic change in our beautiful, now not-so-beefy boy. 

  1. He stopped snacking at work. 
  2. He went on an ayahuasca retreat in Costa Rica, where he consumed nothing but hallucinogenic tea for days. On night four, he experienced true ego death, and then returned to the States as a lighter version of himself, both spiritually and literally.
  3. He finally learned what’s in beaver nuggets, and he hasn’t been able to hold down food since. 
  4. He read the Rainer Maria Rilke poem “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” which ends with “For here there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life,” and it touched him in a way he wasn’t expecting. 
  5. He read that New York Times trend piece about attractive men who look like rodents, and he realized now was his time to shine. But first he had to get Chalamet-skinny. 
  6. He’ll eat only during one 8-hour period out of 24 and he fasts for the other 16, and did you know our ancestors actually practiced intermittent fasting? It goes all the way back to the cavemen days and there are so many health benefits and like increased energy and brain function and . . .
  7. Ozempic.