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MickeyRayRex — Tapirs
#animals #bairdstapir #mammals #tapir #braziliantapir #malayantapir #perissodactyl #mountaintapir #oddtoedungulates
Published: 2016-10-25 01:36:40 +0000 UTC; Views: 4141; Favourites: 85; Downloads: 0
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Description
Tapirs are the third living family or odd-toed ungulates(along with rhinos and equids) and are made up of five living species, four living in Central and South America and one found in Asia. Out of all the perissodactyls the tapirs have changed the least since evolving in the Eocene jungles some 50 million years ago. They first evolved in North America before spreading to Asia and eventually South America after the Isthmus of Panama appeared 3 million years ago. Tapirs are built like pigs with short legs and heavy bodies. Like horses and rhinos they have an odd number of hooves on their feet. Their most famous feature is their elongated snouts which form a trunk used from grasping leaves. The Malayan tapir, the largest species, weighs up to half a ton, while the South American mountain tapir and the recently discovered Kabomani tapir both just weigh around 300 pounds. Adults, except the black and white Malayan tapir, have brownish-black coats, but all species are born with white striped and spotted coats for camouflage in the forest. Like their ancestors the tapirs are primarily forest animals and prefer to feed in simple easy to digest leaves and water-plants. They are also primarily nocturnal and solitary making it somewhat difficult to study them. Because of their large size, thick hides and sharp teeth, few predators prey on tapirs save for occasional crocodilians, big cats and constrictor snakes. Hunting by humans for their meat and skins and destruction of their forest habitat threatens all tapir species.Species shown:
Malayan tapir: Tapirus indicus
Baird's tapir: Tapirus bairdii
Mountain tapir: Tapirus pinchaque
Brazilian tapir: Tapirus terrestris
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Comments: 17
Nice to see the Tapirs get some love. Most people seem to see them as "those things that Jaguars hunt on TV".
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I've actually never seen a video or photo of a tapir begin preyed on by a jaguar. I know it happens, but it must be rare as tapirs are the largest herbivores in south america
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Really? Pretty much all the documentaries I watched growing up portrayed tapirs as a common prey item for Jaguars. The more you know I guess...
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Naw jags very rarely prey on tapirs or large mammals in general. They may attack capybaras and deer when they get the chance but i think they prefer smaller game, especially aquatic reptiles. That might have been a survival mechanism that allowed them to outlast the sabertooth at the end of the last ice age when most of the megafauna died out
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Makes sense, seeing as they are one of the more water-friendly species of feline.
If I recall correctly, Smilodon was over-specialised, being built to hunt large bulky prey such as Toxodon and Macrauchenia and as a result became extinct upon their own extinction, allowing the Jaguar to ascend to "Top Cat" of South America and Pumas to become the "Top Cat" of North America (well, some of it at least).
(The extinction of the Smilodon wasn't the last Ice Age though, since we are currently living in one. An "Ice Age" is "A period of time where large bodies of ice are on the Earth" and since the North and South Poles haven't melted yet we are technically living in the dying years of an Ice Age.)
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That is at least part of the reason Smilodon died out, its possible the first American humans helped drive it and its prey to extinction. And I'm aware we are in an interglacial phase right now, by last ice age i meant the latest glacial period that ended about 10,000 years ago, implying it won't be the last one to come, just that last one that has happened. there have been times when ice existed at the poles but it wasnt an ice age. the poles were beginning to freeze during the Eocene
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Ah yes, that as well.
Fair enough.
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I couldnt find any good photos of it to reference. All I found were camera-trap images of them in the dark
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"Changed the least since evolving in the Eocene jungles some 50 million years ago." Any idea as to how come?
If circumstances permit, would they have been as adaptable to diverse varieties of habitats as the equids and the rhinoceritids?
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They've changed the least compared to horses and rhinos because they remained in pretty much the same habitats as their ancestors did; when the rainforests of the Eocene retreated the tapirs stuck to those habitats while the other perissodactylids adapted to the open spaces. Im not sure whether or not they could have adapted to the plains like the other perissodactyls, but obviously they didn't need to.
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So in some alternate scenario where a sudden drop in global temperature sped the shrinking of the rainforests to the extent of creating a mass extinction, would they survive in the forests that remained or would the change be too fast for them to adapt?
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