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A Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus). Photographed at the Bronx zoo on July 5th, 2008.
Dave Hone (of Archosaur Musings) kindly provided the following photo, taken in Seoul Zoo. It features a South tropical American tapir - but which one? Test your skills...
I love tapirs. But they're not always nice. In 1998 a Malayan tapir Tapirus indicus at Oklahoma Zoo bit a keeper's arm clean…
I could hardly believe my eyes this past Saturday; a male black-crested gibbon (Hylobates concolor) swung down from the miniature forest of its enclosure and started to groom the back and sides of a Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus). The tapir stood still while the gibbon picked over its hide for a…
Vasan, a baby Malaysan Tapir (Tapirus indicus) at Edinburgh Zoo.
(AP Photo/Andrew Milligan,PA)
Tapirs are awesome and adorable. Yet another animal I want as a pet.
It's a Panda Pig! :-)
As a volunteer at Bristol Zoo I can confirm that most tapirs have very placid dispositions. However, Malayan tapirs have a reputation for being the most potentially agressive, probably because they have to cope with tigers wheras the more commonly seen Brazilian and Baird's tapirs have very few natural enemies as adults, other than man. Our Brazilian tapirs loved to be curry combed like horses when they were younger.
I love the way the Brazilian tapirs at my local zoo come up to you when you visit. I got really close to one when I was volunteering there years ago, but I realised it's not that different when you're a visitor anyway, as you can reach right in there and stroke them like a bizarre pony! The funniest thing is when you try to feed them bits of cabbage/carrot and they flick it off your hand with their proboscis and out of reach... will they never learn? Their manes feel just like a coarse hairbrush... yeah, the next picture on my blog will be those tapirs.
I've always loved the Malayan tapirs, it's the fact that they look like they're wearing a nappy/diaper that gets me!
Funny, I was just saying the other day to my niece that I want to keep a tapir in my bedroom! Probably not a good idea though, it might eat my bedsheets.