When Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was asked to create statues of prehistoric animals for the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace, he based his reconstructions of the long extinct Palaeotherium on modern-day tapirs. Likewise, when Stanley Kubrick was looking for an animal to share the Pliocene landscape with his ape men for the opening sequences of 2001: A Space Odyssey, he too plumped for a tapir. But aside from looking like they come from a different era, exactly what is a tapir?
With their trunk-like snouts and relatively small eyes, you could be forgiven for thinking that tapirs are related to the pig family. But as perissodactyls (or odd-toed ungulates), the closest living relatives of the tapir - besides other tapirs, of course - are horses and rhinos. Even amongst the ranks of the odd-toed hoofed mammals, tapirs are unusual, however, since while they have only three toes on their hind feet, they have four on their front. Crazy, eh?!
Of the four recognised species of tapir, it's the Brazilian you're most likely to see in captivity. Hailing from South America, like the Mountain and the Baird's tapir, this frankly adorable animal is somewhat endangered in the wild but breeds incredibly well in zoos. Juveniles are particularly noteworthy since i) they're even more adorable than their parents, and ii) they have a stripy coat that helps them allude predators.
The fourth surviving tapir species can be found on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. The Malayan differs greatly from its Latino cousins since instead of brown fur, it has a striking white and black coat.
Significantly more endangered than the Brazilian species (as are the Mountain and Baird's tapir for that matter), the Malayan also has a longer trunk which is uses as a tool when browsing and as a snorkel when swimming.
As captivating as they are curious looking, the tapir's prehistoric appearance is interesting since it's actually proof of how successful a form the animal is. Indeed, in prehistoric Australia, there were marsupial tapirs, creatures more closely related to kangaroos and koalas than true tapirs that, through processes of adaptation, had come to look like the animals we known and love today. While it might look like a relic, then, the tapir is an animal built to survive.
If only man hadn't succeeded where time and tide failed, the tapir mightn't now be faced with extinction. But if people have been responsible for killing animals and destroying their habits, so people also offer the best hope for the tapir's survival. Celebrations for World Tapir Day are held every year on 17th April . If you hate to contemplate a tapir-free world, be sure to take part - you nose it makes sense.