Baku’s two jobs, forest management and apex predator of the forest
Baku are gentle animals with a unique appearance. They are an integral part of their ecosystem, living in diverse habitats from tropical rainforests to grasslands from Latin America to South-East Asia.
There are only five species of tapir, four of which are found in Latin America and only the fifth, the Malayan tapir, is found in far-flung Asia.
The Mountain Bapir, which lives at high altitudes in the Andes, has a dense, furry coat, which is not found in the lowland baku.
The Baird’s tapir, which lives in Central America, has been found to eat more than 200 plant species. The whole forest could be a buffet and the world could look like heaven.
Moreover, despite its size and seemingly slow pace, the tapir has few natural enemies. This is partly due to their tough skins and their ability to quickly escape into thick vegetation and water when threatened. These seemingly innocuous traits are considerable strengths.
Baku plays a double important role: as a seed disperser and as an herbivore but close to an apex predator. Their ecological status can be described as similar to that of bears and other animals in Europe and Asia.
They are known as ‘forest gardeners’. Barks, which eat plants, fruits and leaves, consume seeds, which pass through their digestive system and are mixed with faeces and spread in various parts of the forest. They play an important role in nutrient cycling as well as protecting diverse species.
Tapir trivia
The snout is distinctive, long and flexible, like a shortened elephant snout. Its snout is short but dexterous like an elephant’s. It is a skilful foraging tool and plays a dexterous role in grasping leaves, pulling leaves from branches and plucking juicy fruit from trees.
Furthermore, when swimming, it performs a role similar to a snorkel in this way.
Also considered living fossils. Their lineage can be traced back to about 50 million years ago. This means their ancestors witnessed the end of the dinosaurs, the first flowers bloomed and they experienced continental drift.
Sometimes confused with anteaters because of their slightly pig-like silhouette and their elongated snout, they are actually in the same group of animals as horses and rhinos. It belongs to the order Odd-toed ungulates, a taxonomic group characterised by an odd number of toes and a stomach specialising in the decomposition of brittle plants.
There are many even-toed animals with an even number of hooves, but few odd-toed animals. There are three types of animal: the horse, which is historically familiar to humans; the rhinoceros, which looks like a dinosaur; and the less well-known creature, the tapir, which has an incredibly long gestation period and is a member of the animal kingdom.
The gestation period is surprisingly long – about 13 months, one of the longest in the animal kingdom. Baku offspring have a lovely mottled coat that acts as natural camouflage.
Newborn tapirs have their characteristic striped and spotted camouflage. And these patterns provide excellent camouflage in the twilight of forests. Like the spots on deer and other animals, the light that filters through the leaves of the trees is used as a pattern on their clothing. However, these patterns change as they mature and become plain in adulthood.
Despite their relatively stout build, tapirs are surprisingly agile swimmers and can even dive. They can even submerge themselves completely and walk along the river bottom in search of soft aquatic vegetation.
They are surprisingly agile. They can navigate rough terrain and move quickly when necessary.
Moreover, despite their size and seemingly slow pace, tapirs have few natural enemies. This is partly due to their tough skins and their ability to quickly flee into thick vegetation or water when threatened. These seemingly innocuous traits are considerable strengths.
The first time it was recognised scientifically by Westerners goes back to, yes, that man of course, the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus. Linnaeus described the Brazilian tapir in his Systema Naturae, published in 1758, which marked the beginning of the scientific exploration of these tapirs.
The tapir as a legendary animal in China and Japan
In China, it was believed that the fur of the tapir would ward off disease and other calamities. It is not clear whether this was a legendary or actual animal resembling the tapir.
The legend suggests that the Chinese, who had advanced nautical skills, may have acquired the animal through trade, or that China itself may have had a tapir in ancient times, as there are tapirs in South-East Asia.
In Japan, stories of the tapir have been passed down from generation to generation, and the impression of the tapir as a grateful animal that eats nightmares has been firmly established for quite some time. Even today, some temples have wooden carvings of the tapir attached to them, like the gargoyles in European castles.
The reason why it looks like a gargoyle is that there has always been no tapir in Japan in the first place, making it a virtual beast that looks like a combination of a mammoth and a dragon. The actual baku is cute like a capybara, but the carved wooden baku is quite scary looking.
In Japan, the baku still has the image of a nightmare-eating animal. It is more abstractly known as such a creature than as an actual animal. There are Japanese people who can draw a capybara, but there are probably not many people who can suddenly draw a baku.
Conclusion
The study of the tapir is rather modest. It is a relatively unexplored animal for an animal of its size.
As a nocturnal animal, the tapir has a keen sense of hearing and smell to compensate for its relatively weak eyesight. This is a feature that is also close to that of the rhinoceros, a creature close to the first mentioned. Rhinos also have weak eyesight but excellent hearing and sense of smell.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed three of the five species of tapir as endangered and two as critically endangered. The rhinoceros is a valuable endangered animal, but the tapir is also very valuable. If humans do not protect them properly, there will be only one species of odd-toed animal on the planet: the horse.
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