Friday, March 28, 2014

The Tapir, a truly strange looking, but also surprisingly cute animal

The Tapir is one of those animals you may not have ever heard of.  It's sort of like a cross between a pig and an anteater...and let's face it - the taper is basically ugly.  Sorry, tapir.

















But there's more to tapirs than meets the eye.  For example, male tapirs have exceptionally large penises. Also, their nostrils look like side by side vacuum hoses.  Interestingly, they are a relative of rhinoceroses and horses. Tapirs can live in dry climates, but when they live near water, they spend a lot of time swimming.  When they swim, they use their funny noses as snorkels.  Wait a minute...getting cuter?

There are a lot of different types of tapirs, but the cool thing is they all look the same as babies, which is like this:


















No matter what color or type or region of the world the tapir is from, the baby sports this adorable stripes and spots pattern. The purpose of the pattern is probably some helpful camouflage to make the babies less vulnerable to predators. Whatever the reason, if you google photos of baby tapirs, don't blame me if this dark horse-rhino-pig becomes your new favorite animal.

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