Palaeotapirus

Tapirs are large herbivorous mammals belonging to the family Tapiridae. They are similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile nose trunk (proboscis). Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South and Central America and Southeast Asia. They are one of three extant branches of Perissodactyla, alongside equines and rhinoceroses. Only a single genus, Tapirus, is extant. Tapirs migrated into South America from North America during the Pleistocene epoch after the formation of the Isthmus of Panama as part of the Great American Interchange. Tapirs were present across North America, but became extinct in the region at the end of the Late Pleistocene, around 12,000 years ago.

Palaeotapirus

蕭漫 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
TapiridaePBDB
Diet
browserPBDB, for Tapiridae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Tapiridae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 4.5 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 20.45 Mya and 15.98 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Miocene — about 2 of 2 occurrencesMiocene21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20.9 Mya15.5 Mya

2 occurrences of Palaeotapirus on record, most of them in the Miocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

2 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Shanwang — 36.52°N, 118.54°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Palaeotapirus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Palaeotapirus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Palaeotapirus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

30 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Palaeotapirus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

2 references

Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Palaeotapirus

Credit
蕭漫
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Palaeotapirus was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itTapiridae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Filhol 1888