Tapirus indicus
The Malayan tapir, also called Asian tapir, Asiatic tapir, oriental tapir, Indian tapir, piebald tapir, or black-and-white tapir, is the only living tapir species outside of the Americas. It is native to Southeast Asia from the Malay Peninsula to Sumatra. It has been listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2008, as the population is estimated to comprise fewer than 2,500 mature individuals.

Rufus46 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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- Also called
- Malayan tapirPBDB
- Sits inside
- TapirusPBDB
- Diet
- browserPBDB, for Tapirus
- Life habit
- amphibiousPBDB, for Tapirus
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 762 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 774 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
7 occurrences of Tapirus indicus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
7 occurrences- Pleistocene86%
- Holocene14%
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.
Tapirus indicus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Tapirus indicus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
121 taxa- Panthera tigris7 sites
- Muntiacus muntjak6 sites
- Sus5 sites
- Rhinoceros sondaicus4 sites
- Ursus malayanus4 sites
- Bos (Bibos)3 sites
- Cervidae3 sites
- Macaca3 sites
- Pongo pygmaeus3 sites
- Rusa3 sites
- Sus scrofa3 sites
- Ursus thibetanus3 sites
- Acanthion brachyurus2 sites
- Arctonyx collaris2 sites
- Bos sauveli2 sites
- Bubalus bubalis2 sites
- Bubalus palaeokerabau2 sites
- Capricornis sumatraensis2 sites
- Cervus unicolor2 sites
- Elephas hysudrindicus2 sites
- Elephas maximus2 sites
- Hexaprotodon sivalensis2 sites
- Homo erectus2 sites
- Homo sapiens2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Tapirus indicus, 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
5 references- The Late Neogene elephantoid-bearing faunas of Indonesia and their palaeozoogeographic implications. A study of the terrestrial faunal succession of Sulawesi, Flores and Java, including evidence for early hominid dispersal east of Wallace's Line3
- First discovery of Pleistocene orangutan (Pongo sp.) fossils in Peninsular Malaysia: Biogeographic and paleoenvironmental implications1
- The Middle Pleistocene mammalian fauna from Tam Hang karstic deposit, northern Laos: New data and evolutionary hypothesis1
- Extension of the geographic distribution of the giant panda (Ailuropoda) and search for the reasons for its progressive disappearance in Southeast Asia during the Latest Middle Pleistocene1
- On the mammal fauna of the Wajak Cave, Java (Indonesia)1
Each of the 7 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 Tapirus indicus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Rufus46
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Tapirus indicus 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 itTapirus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Desmarest 1819)