Baird´s Tapir

The Baird’s tapir is the largest land mammal in Central America. Despite its size, it moves nimbly through the dense rainforest. With its short, flexible snout, it picks up leaves, fruits and twigs. In this way, they often disperse seeds over many kilometres via their droppings, thereby contributing to plant growth. Tapirs are also excellent swimmers and use rivers not only to cool down, but also to escape from predators.

At first glance, the Baird’s tapir resembles a pig with a trunk. In fact, however, tapirs
belong to the same group of animals as horses and rhinos. Their ancestors lived on Earth millions of years ago, long before humans existed.

With only 4,500 individuals remaining, the Baird’s tapir has become extremely rare.
It is rarely seen in European zoos either.