Malayan tapir

The Malayan tapir, Tapirus indicus, is the only living tapir outside the Americas. It is native to Southeast Asia, from the Malay Peninsula to Sumatra, in lowland tropical forests of Sumatra, Peninsular Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand. It is the largest of the four living tapir species, 1.8 to 2.5 metres long, 90 to 110 centimetres tall, and usually 250 to 320 kilograms, though some adults reach 540 kilograms.

Its black front and back and white middle make it easy to recognise. Black hair covers the head, shoulders and legs, while white hair covers the midsection, the rear and the tips of the ears. It has a long, flexible snout like a short trunk, and poor eyesight but excellent hearing and smell. Since 2008 it has been listed as Endangered, because fewer than 2,500 adults are thought to remain.

A coat that breaks up its outline

The pale patch from shoulders to hindquarters breaks up the animal's outline against the varied ground and dense plants of its forest home. A tapir lying down to sleep may be mistaken by a predator for a large rock. A few black Malayan tapirs have also been seen in Malaysia.

Its eyes are small and sit on the sides of its face, and the corneas are often covered in a blue haze. As it is mostly active at night, it relies on smell and hearing to find food and avoid danger.

Forest life

Malayan tapirs are mostly solitary. They mark their territory by spraying urine on plants and follow paths that they bulldoze through the undergrowth. They eat the tender shoots and leaves of more than 115 plant species, about 30 of them especially favoured, and they eat soon after sunset or before sunrise.

They like to live near water and often bathe and swim, and they can also climb steep slopes. They talk with high-pitched squeaks and whistles. If cornered, a tapir can defend itself with strong jaws and sharp teeth.

A calf in stripes

A pregnancy lasts about 390 to 395 days, and a single calf of about 6.8 kg is born. Young tapirs have brown hair with white stripes and spots that hide them in the dappled light, and this coat fades to adult colouring at four to seven months. Weaning happens at six to eight months, and a female usually has one calf every two years.

Few animals hunt an adult, and tapirs can live up to 30 years. The main threats are deforestation, including forests turned into oil palm plantations in Thailand and Malaysia. Between 2006 and 2010, 142 tapirs were displaced by forest fragmentation in Peninsular Malaysia, and 15 were killed by vehicles.

On the globe

The model shows a Malayan tapir with a white saddle on a black body in the Southeast Asian rainforest.