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| Thai Wildlife > Rare or Extinct |
Asian Tapir
Species: Tapirus indicus (Desmarest, 1819)
Synonyms: Tapirus sumatraensis (Gray 1821); Tapirus malayanus (Raffles, 1821); Tapirus bicolor (Wagner, 1835)
Order: Perissodactyla
Family: Tapiridae
Common names: Asian Tapir; Malayan Tapir
The tapir is an animal that looks as if it is a combination of many other animals. This has given it the nickname "complete mix".
It has a 20 centimeter extendable nose like an elephant's trunk. The body is fat with small eyes and oval shaped ears like a pig. The tail is short like that of a bear. The feet are flat like the rhinoceros. In addition the tapir has a hump on its back like it is disfigured.
The fur on the front part from the armpits to the head are black. The rest of the body is white and it seems as if the tapir is wearing a body hugging white pants. The young tapir has black and white melon-like stripes along the body. The stripes will disappear when it is six months old. The tapir has odd number toes. The skin around the neck is tough and thick making it suitable for burrowing in dense forests. This is also ideal to protect it from tigers that like to bite the neck of their prey. The hind hooves have three toes while the front has four toes. The Thai or Asian tapir is bigger than the ones found in the Americas. The females are slightly larger than the males.
They measure 2.2-2.4 meters in length and one meter height at the shoulders. Its tail is about 5-10 centimeters in length and body weight is 250-300 kilograms.
The tapir is a mammal native to Southeast Asia, found in the south of Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, and Sumatra. The tapir is found in the west of Thailand in the Tanaosri mountains and the forest reserve at Huay Ka Keng in Uthaithani. They are also found in the Thanon Thongchai mountains in the south and Malaysia.
Like the rhinoceros the tapir likes to live alone, in cool dense forest near water, being a good swimmer and diver for both feeding and protection from predators.
It mates in April- May with a pregnancy of 390-395 days and the mother carries one foal at a time that weighs 6-7 kilograms at birth. They can reproduce at the age of over 2 -3 years and the female can mate every two years. The lifespan is about 30 years.
Hunted for meat and hide, tasting like pork. Due to their calm nature they are easy targets while forest habitats in the south have been destroyed. Thus their numbers have dwindled rapidly to a critical condition.
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