The Dapper Tapir

Tapirs are very soothing animals. They are placid aquatic herbivores, who browse in the wetlands. The size of a small pony, they have a dapper little crewcut of a mane.

In 2017 I posted about a tapir that I saw in the Amazon Basin rainforest in Ecuador. Here in the open grasslands of the Southern Pantanal the experience was very different. In this ecosystem, they are strictly nocturnal, probably because they feed out in the open, and the jaguars would be a threat. In the daytime they sleep in the forests. At Caiman Lodge they are just starting to monitor them and understand more about their range and lifestyle. They estimate that the ranch is home to between 100 and 250 tapirs, but they are secretive, so this a guess. We saw two.

The first was a tagged male that we stumbled upon by chance, at night, feeding in the wetlands.

The next day we saw an untagged female, who had emerged from the woods in the late afternoon for a cool bathe followed by a semi-submerged nap:

A jacana used it as a convenient island.

She has a baby., which we didn’t see. As it fell dark she began to forage, and we caught her in our lights:

Catching one to tag it is accomplished by baiting this trap with a salt lick in a blue plastic tub. Unable to resist, they are lured in, the door is lowered, and the animal is stuck.

The fierce little white-lipped peccaries also like the salt, and sometimes steal it:

PS The South American tapir, Tapirus terrestris, is up to 2.5 m (8.2 ft) long and an average weight around 250 kg (over 500lb). It stands up to 108 cm (43 in) at the shoulder. They can live up to 40 years, and are sexually mature at about four years old. The IUCN classifies it as Vulnerable, and the Pantanal is at the southern end of its range.