Known as ‘gardeners of the forest’, lowland tapirs are hugely important to the ecosystems they inhabit. They are the largest terrestrial land mammal in Latin America, some of them growing to half the size of a horse, and they eat around 6kg of fruit a night. Roaming up to 7km throughout the night, they defecate and deposit seeds, which will then grow into habitat or food for other wildlife.
Tapirs have survived several waves of extinction over millions of years. However, they now face a variety of human-made threats, including habitat destruction due to expansion of large-scale agriculture, ...
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