Need a clue? It is also related to the horse and rhinoceros. Give up? It’s a tapir.
Tapirs are rather strange, primitive creatures. They are big animals—measuring about six to eight feet between their short little trunk and their stubby little tail, and weighing up to 700 pounds. Unlike elephants, who pick up food with their trunks, the tapirs move their trunks aside and browse like horses. Tapirs are the only animals native to the Americas which have four toes on their front feet and three toes on their hind feet.
In ancient times, tapirs were found throughout North America and tropical Eurasia. When the weather cooled down the European tapirs became extinct. The North American tapirs migrated south across the isthmus of Panama. Today tapirs are found only in Central and South America, and Southeast Asia.
There are only four species of tapirs—the Malayan tapir in Asia, the Brazilian tapir in the rain forests of South America, the mountain tapir in the high northern Andes, and the Baird’s tapir in Mexico and Central America.
