Yet, in the Americas and Asia, the tapir stands out as a strange-looking, trunked creature that demands attention. There are four species of tapir: the lowland, Baird's, mountain, and Malaysian tapir.

Tapirs are often called “living fossils” because they have changed very little since the Eocene Epoch, which was between 56 and 33.9 million years ago.

Tapirs are decidedly cool creatures, so learning of various conservation threats to them is vexing. As the Tapir Specialist Group notes, “Because of their enormous size and large range, ...

Growing up to 700 pounds, the South American tapir, or lowland tapir, is a vital member of rainforest ecosystems. These cartoonish critters become known as “forest gardeners” due to their ...

A Species Thought Lost Returns. For more than 100 years, the South American tapir (Tapirus terrestris) had been missing from the Atlantic Forest, a once vast biome now reduced to fragments due to ...

It’s a girl! Point Defiance Zoo recently welcomed a rare and endangered Malayan tapir calf. Her name is Ume, which means plum blossom and apricot in Japanese. The zoo says her keeper staff chose ...

“Tapirs have visited Singapore in 1986, 2016 and 2023. For the first time, we have observations of one that stayed and ate,” Chua said in the post. The Malayan tapir seen eating on Pulau Ubin ...

Ume, a rare Malayan tapir, just turned one month old at Tacoma’s Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. With her giant eyes and bright spots, Ume has blown up online as a social media star.

With their drooping noses, rotund bodies and vegetarian diets, tapirs are quite a sight. These elusive hoofed mammals are widely considered to be calm and gentle, naturally inclined to run and ...

A “fuzzy watermelon”-looking animal in Washington is winning over the hearts of people on social media. Ume is a white striped and speckled Malayan tapir calf that was born Feb. 2 at the Point ...