Living Fossils – A video of Asian tapir
Rare daytime footage of Asian Tapir
Tapir are considered living fossils as the genus has been traced back as far as Early Oligocene times. These remarkable mammals have been on the planet for about 40 million years. The first tapirs are named Miotapirus judging from fossil evidence found in North America. Tapiridae, a sub-family belong to the Order Perissodactyls, or odd-toed ungulates that goes back to the Late Paleocene 55 million years ago including rhinoceros-like creatures evolving in North America and eastern Asia from small animals similar to the first horses.
The Asian tapir Tapirus indicus, also called the Malayan tapir, is the only one native to Southeast Asia. It has an unmistakable black and white two-tone pattern distinguishing it from the other three tapir species of Central and South America. The Asian species is the largest, and is the only ‘Old World’ tapir with the females usually slightly larger than the males. They live in the rainforests of Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia and Sumatra.
This old male and female tapir visited this site more than once over two days. Most of the footage was captured by a Bushnell HD Trophy Cam, and the IR clip by a Ron Davis DXG 125v IR homebrew cam.
