A new living species of large mammal: hello, Tapirus kabomani!
By Darren Naish
For some considerable time now, there have been rumours of an incredible zoological discovery: a new species of living perissodactyl – a tapir – due to be announced from the Amazon. At long last, the paper is out. Published in Journal of Mammalogy, and authored by Mario Cozzuol and a team of colleagues, it describes the new Tapirus species T. kabomani, first realised to be novel following the recognition of specimens obtained by Brazilian indigenous hunters in 2009, and since recognised in museum collections (Cozzuol et al. 2013). This is the first officially recognised new tapir to be described since 1865 (when Baird’s tapir T. bairdii was named).
T. kabomani is known from several specimens obtained by local hunters. The type specimen is a young adult male (represented by both skin and skeleton) and other recently hunted specimens are known as well. Perhaps most remarkable is the fact that a partial skull and skin collected by Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 (and today residing in the collections of the American Museum of Natural History in New York) also belongs to this species (Cozzuol et al. 2013). As so often turns out to be the case, this ‘new’ species has in fact been sitting on a museum shelf for about 100 years. Ah, hindsight. The species name honours the local Paumarí name for tapir, ‘Arabo kabomani’.
How is T. kabomani distinguished as a new species? For a start, it’s small: 1.3 m long, 90 cm tall at shoulder, and estimated to weigh about 110 kg. This makes it the smallest living tapir. In life, it is especially dark, with a lower mane and broader forehead than the well known and familiar Brazilian or Lowland tapir T. terrestris.
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http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2013/12/17/new-living-species-of-tapir/
= new reply since forum marked as read
But the population tapired-off.
