fbpx

KidsKonnect

Tapir Facts & Worksheets

Zoo visitors often question, “Is it a pig or an anteater?” No, it’s a tapir, a large, browsing mammal with short, prehensile snouts of the family Tapridae.

Search for Worksheets

Worksheets /Tapir Facts & Worksheets

Premium
Tapir Worksheets
Not ready to purchase a subscription? Click to download the free sample version   Download sample

Zoo visitors often question, “Is it a pig or an anteater?” No, it’s a tapir, a large, browsing mammal with short, prehensile snouts of the family Tapridae. Considered as primitive animals, tapirs are most closely related to horses and rhinos, despite their pig-like appearance.

See the fact file below for more information on the tapir or alternatively, you can download our 20-page Tapir worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

DESCRIPTION

  • Tapirs possess splayed, hoofed toes; four toes on the front feet and three on the back feet, allowing them to walk on muddy and soft ground.
  • Size differs across species, but the majority of living tapirs are seven feet in length, stand about three feet at the shoulder, and weigh between 330 to 700 pounds.
  • They have short coats and range in a spectrum of colors, from reddish brown to gray to nearly black, except for the Malayan tapir, which is covered with a white saddle-shaped marking on its back, and the mountain tapir, which has longer, fluffy fur.
  • Tapirs have oval, white-tipped ears, and rounded ends that are bulging out with its stubby tail. Baby tapirs have striped-and-spotted coats, an adaptation to camouflage, which tend to differ in patterns across all species.
  • Females have one pair of mammary glands.
  • Tapirs have prehensile snouts which are able to move in all directions, letting them grab foliage that is out of reach.
  • Flehmen response, a posture in which snouts are raised and teeth shown, is usually an observed trait exhibited by male tapirs sniffing for signs of other males or females in oestrus in the area.
  • Malayan tapirs have the longest proboscis while the Brazilian tapirs have the shortest.
  • Their snouts are almost completely made of soft tissue, rather than bony internal structures, allowing their skull to form a unique shape having larger sagittal crest, orbits located more rostrally, a posteriorly telescoped cranium, and a stretched and retracted nasoincisive incisure.
  • They have low-crowned teeth, also known as brachydont, that do not have the formation of cement. They have 42 to 44 teeth in total, a dentition closer to those of the members of the Equidae family. Their incisors are chisel-shaped, with the third large, conical upper incisor isolated by a short distance from the smaller canine. Longer gaps are present between the canines and premolars.
  • Tapirs are lophodonts, or having traverse ridges on the grinding surfaces, and their cheek teeth have unique ridges between protocones, paracones, metacones, and hypocones.

LIFE CYCLE AND BEHAVIOR

  • Female Malayan tapirs sexually mature between the age of three and four, and males at five years of age.
  • Healthy female tapirs give birth every two years; one baby tapir is born 13 months after gestation. Their lifespan is about 25 to 30 years, both in the wild and in captivity.
  • They are known to be exclusively solitary mammals.
  • Despite living in dryland forests, tapirs with access to rivers spend some time under water, consuming soft vegetation, taking refuge from predators, and cooling off during hot weathers. Tapirs close to bodies of water will swim, reach the bottom, and walk along the riverbed to eat, and have been known to sink themselves underwater to let small fish pick parasites off their skin. They also wallow in mud pits, which helps to keep them cool.
  • Tapirs in the wild feed on fruit, berries, and leaves, and will spend their waking hours looking for food along well-worn trails.
  • Studies show Baird’s tapirs have been found to consume around 85 pounds of vegetation in just a single day.
  • Tapirs are nocturnal and crepuscular, though the smaller mountain tapir of the Andes is said to be diurnal. They possess monocular vision.
  • Due to their large size, adults have few natural predators, and the thick skin on their napes safeguard them from danger, such as jaguars, crocodiles, anacondas, and tigers. Despite their size and appearance, tapirs are fast runners, especially when searching for shelter in the thick undergrowth of the forest or in water.
  • Hunting for meat and hides, together with habitat loss, has caused a great decline in their numbers. Both the Brazilian tapir and the Malayan tapir are considered vulnerable; and the Baird’s tapir and the mountain tapir are endangered.
  • The Malayan tapir is the most isolated species in terms of geography among the rest of the genus, and has been found to share fewer homologies with its three other cousins.

TAPIRS AND HUMANS

  • Tapirs are typically shy, but when they are frightened, they can defend themselves with their strong jaws. They tend to avoid confrontation in favor of running from predators, finding a safe spot, or if possible, submerging themselves in nearby water until danger is gone.
  • The tapir is named after a beast from Chinese mythology, described to have a snout like that of an elephant.

Tapir Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about the tapir across 20 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Tapir worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about the tapir, a large, browsing mammal with short, prehensile snouts of the family Tapridae. Considered as primitive animals, tapirs are most closely related to horses and rhinos, despite their pig-like appearance.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Tapir Facts
  • Creature Feature
  • Tapir Anatomy
  • Tapir or Not
  • Growing Up Tapir
  • Other Odd-Toed Mammals
  • Puzzled
  • The Nose Knows
  • Roles of a Tapir
  • Call for Help
  • Extant Tapirs

Link/cite this page

If you reference any of the content on this page on your own website, please use the code below to cite this page as the original source.

Link will appear as Tapir Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, April 22, 2021

Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

Related Resources