Antwerp Zoo has announced on its website the birth of a Malayan tapir. The pig-like animal, which is actually more closely related to rhinoceroses and horses than pigs, is endangered in the wild and its birth, last Saturday morning, was a coup for the zoo's captive breeding program. All the animals born in the zoo this year will be given names beginning with the letter "I", so the baby- a young female- has been named "Indira", meaning "beautiful" in Sanscrit. Her mother, "Signora", is one of the zoo's females and her father is "Nico": a nine-year old male from Rotterdam Zoo. 14-year old Signora has previously given birth to a daughter, Ganesha, and a son, James.
Unlike the adults, which are a plain brown color with a light saddle, baby tapirs are dark brown with white stripes and spots, which help to camouflage them from predators, such as tigers, in their native jungle habitat. The creatures, which live in Sumatra, Thailand, Malaysia and Myanmar, have a prehensile snout, like a shortened version of an elephant's trunk, which they use to reach and pull plants into their mouths. In the wild, they spend a good deal of time in water, feeding on soft plants, cooling off and avoiding predators. Indira, who weighed approximately 5kg at birth (adults can weigh up to 300kg), has spent much of her first week sleeping indoors with her mother.
Tapirs take between 3 and 5 years to reach adulthood and live for between 25 and 30 years; there are thought to be only 1,500 to 2,000 in the wild. In an e mail interview, a spokeswoman said that Antwerp zoo is involved in a large number of international breeding programs to help endangered animals, but particularly focuses on 8 species, including the bonobo chimpanzee, the golden-headed lion tamarin and the okapi: a relative of the giraffe.
By Victoria Neblik, 15th Feb 2007.
