Tapirus

Tapir centroamericano (Central American Tapir)Tapirus bairdii), it lives from southern Mexico to the coast of Ecuador.

Upholstery.

Tapir malayo (a)Tapirus indicus), only current species that survives outside of America.

The tapirs (Tapirus) are a genus of perissodactyl mammals of the Tapiridae family. It is the only extant genus in the family, which includes nine other extinct genera. It belongs to the order Perissodactyls, which also includes horses, to which they are distantly related, and rhinos, which are their closest living relatives.

In some places it receives names such as mboreví (Guarani word), anta, danta, anteburro, < b>pinchaque, sachavaca, danto and macho de monte. In December 2013 the discovery of a new species named Tapirus kabomani was announced.

Description

They are medium-sized animals, with a length that varies from 1.3 to 2.5 m, with a 5 to 10 cm long tail, and a height at the withers of 70 to 1, 2 m and a weight of 110 to 300 kg.

However, the main characteristic of the tapir is its elongated snout in the shape of a small proboscis, which it uses mainly to tear up the leaves, grass and roots that constitute its food. This trunk is especially useful for collecting aquatic plants in swamps where it spends a good part of the day. It also serves to drink water and, when they are males, to face their rivals during the mating season.

The body is compact and the head and neck robust, in order to facilitate their passage through the dense tropical foliage. The fur is usually very short and dark, although the young have a brown coat with cryptic spots, similar to those of young piglets, which fade with age.

These are quite primitive animals, the first fossil representatives of the family can be found in the Eocene of Eurasia, about 55 million years ago, where some characteristics are observed that were also present in the ancient ancestors ( Hyracotherium), from its current relatives. The feet have four toes on the front feet and three on the hind feet.

Ecology

Tapirs inhabit humid jungle regions and, in the case of the mountain tapir, the Andean páramos.

Tapirs' most common predators are big cats (the tiger in Asia and the jaguar in the Americas), which they try to get rid of by diving into the water or running at full speed through the jungle. The blows from the branches that the assailant receives in the latter case, if he has clung to his victim, can lead him to let go. However, its main threat is human action, manifested through excessive hunting and the destruction of its habitat. Today, all species in the genus Tapirus are classified in conservation statuses "vulnerable" or "threatened".

Evolutionary history

The first tapirids, such as Heptodon, appeared in the early Eocene in North America 50 million years ago, being very similar to present-day forms, but they were about half the size and lacked a trunk. The first true tapirs appeared in the Oligocene.

The genus spread throughout Eurasia and North America during the Miocene, where it was on the verge of extinction in the Pliocene due to the gradual reduction of forest mass. Luckily for the tapirs, South America joined North America 3 million years ago, giving them an escape route into the great jungles of the south. It is ironic that currently, 4 of the 5 surviving species are precisely American: this is the case of the Northern, Central American or Baird's tapir (Tapirus bairdii), the páramo (Tapirus pinchaque), the jungle tapir (Tapirus kabomani) and the sachavaca, Amazonian, Brazilian or plains tapir (Tapirus terrestris), which are distributed in various areas of Central and South America. The Amazon tapir is the most common; It extends over almost the entire northern part of South America. The northern tapir, distributed from Tehuantepec to the coasts of Ecuador, also inhabited northern Mexico and the southern United States (from California to Florida) during the Pleistocene, where it became extinct about 10,000 years ago.

For their part, Eurasian tapirs suffered a strong reduction from the first half of the Pleistocene, disappearing from Europe and much of Asia due to the advance of the glaciations. Today, a single species survives, the Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus), reduced to a few areas of Sumatra and southern Indochina. Its original distribution was much wider, also covering the island of Java and reaching Burma, India and even China from the north, from where it disappeared due to excessive hunting. This species is distinguished by the longer trunk than that of American tapirs and because in adults the color of the mantle is black on the head, neck and legs, while the rest of the body is white.

Systematics

In the Americas, the jaguar (Panthera onca) is a predator of the Amazonian tapir (Tapirus terrestris).

Carlos Linnaeus referred to the tapir in 1758 in his work Systema Naturae and named the Amazonian tapir, the only type of tapir known in Europe at the time, as Hippopotamus terrestris, due to its body structure similar to that of hippos. The French naturalist Mathurin-Jacques Brisson first introduced the term tapir into French in his work Regnum animale ('le tapir') in 1762 and proposed the name Tapirus for the genus.

Species

The genus Tapirus includes the following species:

• Tapirus bairdii Gill, 1865 (chuckles)Tapirella bairdii)
• Tapirus indicus Desmarest, 1819 (chuckles)Acrocordia indicates)
• Tapirus kabomani Cozzuol, Clozato, Netherlands, Rodrigues, Nienow, Thoisy, Redondo & Santos, 2013
• Tapirus punaque Roulin, 1829
• Tapirus terrestris Linnaeus, 1758

Extinction