A tapir (/ˈteɪpər/ TAY-pər, /ˈteɪpɪər/ TAY-peer, or /təˈpɪər/ tə-PEER) is a large, herbivorous mammal, similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile nose trunk. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest
regions of South America, Central America, and Southeastern Asia. The five
extant species of
tapirs are the Brazilian tapir, the Malayan tapir,
the Baird's tapir, the kabomani tapir, and
the mountain tapir. The four species that have been evaluated (the Brazilian, Malayan, Baird's and mountain tapir) are all
classified as endangered or vulnerable. Their
closest relatives are the other odd-toed ungulates,
which include horses, donkeys, zebras and rhinoceroses.
Species
Five
extant species within one extant genus are widely recognized. Four are in
Central and South America whilst the fifth is in Asia. (Some authors
describe more, and a number are extinct):
Hybrids
Hybrids of the
Baird's and the Brazilian tapirs were bred at the San Francisco Zoo around
1969 and later produced a backcross second generation.
Size
varies between types, but most tapirs are about 2 m (6.6 ft) long,
stand about 1 m (3 ft) high at the shoulder, and weigh between 150
and 300 kg (330 and 700 lb). Their coats are short and range in color
from reddish brown, to grey, to nearly black, with the notable exceptions of
the Malayan tapir, which has a white, saddle-shaped marking on its back, and
the mountain tapir, which has longer, woolly fur. All tapirs have oval,
white-tipped ears, rounded, protruding rumps with stubby tails, and splayed,
hooved toes, with four toes on the front feet and three on the hind feet, which
help them to walk on muddy and soft ground. Baby tapirs of all types have
striped-and-spotted coats for camouflage. Females have a
single pair of mammary glands, and males have long penises relative to
their body size.
Physical characteristics
The proboscis of the tapir
is a highly flexible organ, able to move in all directions, allowing the
animals to grab foliage that would otherwise be out of reach. Tapirs often
exhibit the flehmen
response, a posture in which they raise their snouts and show their teeth
to detect scents. This response is frequently exhibited by bulls sniffing for
signs of other males or females in oestrus in the area. The
length of the proboscis varies among species; Malayan tapirs have the longest
snouts and Brazilian tapirs have the shortest. The evolution of tapir
probosces, made up almost entirely of soft tissues rather than bony internal structures,
gives the Tapiridae skull a unique form in comparison to other perissodactyls, with
a larger sagittal
crest, orbits positioned
more rostrally, a posteriorly telescoped cranium, and a more elongated
and retracted nasoincisive incisure.
Totaling
42 to 44 teeth, this dentition is
closer to that of equids, which may differ by one less canine, than their other
perissodactyl relatives, rhinoceroses. Their incisors are chisel-shaped,
with the third large, conical upper incisor separated by a short gap from the
considerably smaller canine. A much longer gap is found between the canines and
premolars, the first of which may be absent. Tapirs are lophodonts, and
their cheek teeth have distinct lophs (ridges) between protocones, paracones,
metacones and hypocones.
Tapirs
have brown eyes, often with a bluish cast to them, which has been identified
as corneal cloudiness,
a condition most commonly found in Malayan tapirs. The exact etiology is
unknown, but the cloudiness may be caused by excessive exposure to light or by
trauma. However, the tapir's sensitive ears and strong sense of smell help
to compensate for deficiencies in vision. Tapirs have simple stomachs and
are hindgut
fermenters that ferment digested food in a large cecum.
Lifecycle
Young
tapirs reach sexual maturity between three and five years of age, with females
maturing earlier than males. Under good conditions, a healthy female tapir
can reproduce every two years; a single young, called a calf, is born after a
gestation of about 13 months. The natural lifespan of a tapir is about 25
to 30 years, both in the wild and in zoos. Apart from mothers and their young
offspring, tapirs lead almost exclusively solitary lives.
Behavior
Although
they frequently live in dryland forests, tapirs with access to rivers spend a
good deal of time in and underwater, feeding on soft vegetation, taking refuge
from predators, and
cooling off during hot periods. Tapirs near a water source will swim, sink to
the bottom, and walk along the riverbed to feed, and have been known to
submerge themselves under water to allow small fish to pick parasites off their
bulky bodies. Along with freshwater lounging, tapirs often wallow in mud
pits, which also help to keep them cool and free of insects.
In the
wild, the tapir's diet consists of fruit, berries, and leaves, particularly
young, tender growth. Tapirs will spend many of their waking hours foraging
along well-worn trails, snouts to the ground in search of food. Baird's tapirs
have been observed to eat around 40 kg (85 lb) of vegetation in one
day.
Tapirs
are largely nocturnal and crepuscular, although the
smaller mountain tapir of the Andes is
generally more active during the day than
its congeners.
They have monocular
vision.
Copulation
may occur in or out of water, and in captivity, mating pairs will often
copulate multiple times during oestrus.Intromission lasts between 10 and 20
minutes.
Habitat, predation, and vulnerability
Adult
tapirs are large enough to have few natural predators, and the thick skin on
the backs of their necks helps to protect them from threats such as jaguars, crocodiles, anacondas, and tigers. The creatures are also
able to run fairly quickly, considering their size and cumbersome appearance,
finding shelter in the thick undergrowth of the forest or in water. Hunting for
meat and hides has substantially reduced their numbers and, more recently,
habitat loss has resulted in the conservation watch-listing of all four
species; both the Brazilian tapir and the Malayan tapir are classified as
vulnerable, and the Baird's tapir and the mountain tapir are endangered.
Evolution and natural history
The
first tapirids, such as Heptodon, appeared in the early Eocene of North
America. They appeared very similar to modern forms, but were about half
the size, and lacked the proboscis. The first true tapirs appeared in the Oligocene. By the Miocene, such genera as Miotapirus were
almost indistinguishable from the extant species. Asian and American tapirs
were believed to have diverged around 20 to 30 million years ago; tapirs later
migrated from North America to South America around 3 million years ago, as
part of the Great American
Interchange.[27] For much of their history,
tapirs were spread across the Northern Hemisphere, where they became extinct as
recently as 10,000 years ago. T. merriami, T. veroensis, T. copei, and T. californicus became extinct during
the Pleistocene in
North America. The giant tapir Megatapirus survived
until about 4,000 years ago in China. Approximate divergence times based on a
2013 analysis of mtDNA sequences
are 0.5 Ma for T. kabomani and the T. terrestris–T.
pinchaqueclade, 5 Ma for T. bairdii and
the three South American tapirs and 9 Ma for the T. indicus branching. T.
pinchaque arises from within a paraphyletic complex
of T. terrestris populations.
Genetics
The
Malayan tapir, the species most isolated geographically from the rest of the
genus, has a significantly smaller number of chromosomes and has been found to
share fewer homologies with
the three types of American tapirs. A number of conserved autosomes (13 between
karyotypes of Baird's tapir and the Brazilian tapir, and 15 between Baird's and
the mountain tapir) have also been found in the American species that are not
found in the Asian animal. However, geographic proximity is not an absolute predictor
of genetic similarity; for instance, G-banded preparations have
revealed Malayan, Baird's and Brazilian tapirs have identical X chromosomes, while
mountain tapirs are separated by a heterochromatic addition/deletion.
Lack of
genetic diversity in tapir populations has become a major source of concern for
conservationists. Habitat loss has isolated already small populations of wild
tapirs, putting each group in greater danger of dying out completely. Even in
zoos, genetic diversity is limited; all captive mountain tapirs, for example,
are descended from only two founder individuals.
Conservation
A
number of conservation projects have been started around the world. The Tapir
Specialist Group, a unit of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, strives
to conserve biological diversity by stimulating, developing, and executing
practical programs to study, save, restore, and manage the four species of
tapir and their remaining habitats in Central and South America and Southeast
Asia.The Baird's Tapir Project of Costa Rica is the longest ongoing tapir
project in the world, having started in 1994. It involves placing radio collars
on tapirs in Costa Rica's Corcovado National Park to study their social systems
and habitat preferences.
Attacks on humans
Tapirs
are generally shy, but when scared they can defend themselves with their very
powerful jaws. In 1998, a zookeeper in Oklahoma Citywas mauled
and had an arm severed after opening the door to a female tapir's enclosure to
push food inside. (The tapir's two-month-old baby also occupied the cage at the
time.) In 2006, Carlos
Manuel Rodriguez Echandi (who was then the Costa Rican Environmental
Minister) became lost in the Corcovado National
Park and was found by a search party with a "nasty bite"
from a wild tapir. In 2013, a two-year-old girl suffered stomach and arm
injuries after being mauled by a Brazilian tapir in Dublin Zoo during a
supervised experience in the tapir enclosure. Dublin Zoo pleaded guilty to
breaching health and safety regulations and were ordered to pay €5,000 to
charity. However, such examples are rare; for the most part, tapirs are
likely to avoid confrontation in favour of running from predators, hiding, or,
if possible, submerging themselves in nearby water until a threat is gone.