Today, for my amazing blog, I will blog about the adorable, I repeat, ADORABLE baby tapir. This animal was featured on a blog titled Ugly Overload, and I totally disagree. Above is a video of Kejutan, the brand new baby malayan tapir born in Port Lympne Wild Animal Park.
This tapir is the ninth successful birth at Port Lympne, although elsewhere the number of tapirs is rapidly declining. The malayan tapir is listed as endangered, and it's extremely rare to find one in it's natural habitat. Let me tell you a little about the tapir.
While the baby, or juvenile, tapir has a dappled coat with distinctive lines, the adults are mostly grey with a large patch of white extending from their shoulders to their rear. This coat acts as cammoflauge, making them look like a very large rock. The tapir is usually 6 to 8 feet and can weight up to 1,000 pounds. It is strictly vegetarian and eats about 115 different types of plants. Oddly, the tapir uses scents to mark boundaries, just like the wolf. On an average day, the tapir will walk slowly through its habitat, tropical lowland forests in Asia, sometimes following scent trails, and eating plants. When threatened, it can run quickly, which is odd considering it's remarkable bulk. The gestation period for tapirs is around 395 days, which means the mommas are pregnant for a very long time.After that a single baby similar to the one above is born, and it reaches maturity at around 3 years. Tapirs can live up to 30 years, in the wild or in captivity.
I've always thought that the tapirs are interesting creatures that seem to come from the age of the dinosaurs.The babies are adorable, while the adults are considerably less so. It's also interesting to learn about the tapir because it is so different from other animals. If I were to sum up the tapir in a few sentences from what i've learned online, it would go something like this: The tapir is a large, fat & happy animal that is endangered due to deforestation. Most predators stay well away from it because of it's size and sharp teeth. Most people have never even heard of the tapir, and it's well on it's way to becoming distinct not only physically but also in the eyes of men. It won't be remembered like the cute panda, just forgotten.
Looking at this blog post, I want to add: "And if you act now, you can donate $30 to save the endangered tapir...." but in all seriousness, this animal is dying off because of humans taking its habitat to use for paper, and killing it for money. Maybe those small differences I once mentioned can become big differences, especially to an animal like Kejutan.
P.S. Kawaii is japanese for cute.
This tapir is the ninth successful birth at Port Lympne, although elsewhere the number of tapirs is rapidly declining. The malayan tapir is listed as endangered, and it's extremely rare to find one in it's natural habitat. Let me tell you a little about the tapir.
While the baby, or juvenile, tapir has a dappled coat with distinctive lines, the adults are mostly grey with a large patch of white extending from their shoulders to their rear. This coat acts as cammoflauge, making them look like a very large rock. The tapir is usually 6 to 8 feet and can weight up to 1,000 pounds. It is strictly vegetarian and eats about 115 different types of plants. Oddly, the tapir uses scents to mark boundaries, just like the wolf. On an average day, the tapir will walk slowly through its habitat, tropical lowland forests in Asia, sometimes following scent trails, and eating plants. When threatened, it can run quickly, which is odd considering it's remarkable bulk. The gestation period for tapirs is around 395 days, which means the mommas are pregnant for a very long time.After that a single baby similar to the one above is born, and it reaches maturity at around 3 years. Tapirs can live up to 30 years, in the wild or in captivity.
I've always thought that the tapirs are interesting creatures that seem to come from the age of the dinosaurs.The babies are adorable, while the adults are considerably less so. It's also interesting to learn about the tapir because it is so different from other animals. If I were to sum up the tapir in a few sentences from what i've learned online, it would go something like this: The tapir is a large, fat & happy animal that is endangered due to deforestation. Most predators stay well away from it because of it's size and sharp teeth. Most people have never even heard of the tapir, and it's well on it's way to becoming distinct not only physically but also in the eyes of men. It won't be remembered like the cute panda, just forgotten.
Looking at this blog post, I want to add: "And if you act now, you can donate $30 to save the endangered tapir...." but in all seriousness, this animal is dying off because of humans taking its habitat to use for paper, and killing it for money. Maybe those small differences I once mentioned can become big differences, especially to an animal like Kejutan.
P.S. Kawaii is japanese for cute.
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