| July
2006 Here are more pictures of the newcomers — The little Red Ucary is, fortunately, doing very well. And last week a baby Tapir came to us. This one was immediately "adopted" by Lolita. I told you last time that our manatee died-it was probabaly bitten by a snake. Otherwise, everybody is fine. Best wishes, Gudrun
Notes on Tapirs: Four species of tapir exist on the planet today. All are closely related, although one — the Asian (often called Malayan) tapir — lives in Southeast Asia, while the other three live in the Americas. The Baird's tapir lives in Mexico and Central America, and has been found in the northernmost areas of Colombia; the lowland (often called Brazilian) tapir lives in the rain forests of South America; and the mountain tapir lives in the high cloud forests and paramos of the northern Andes of Colombia and Ecuador. Tapirs are related to the primitive horse and to the rhinoceros. Prehistoric tapirs inhabited Europe, North America and Southeast Asia, including China, with no remains having been found on the continents of Africa, Australia, or Antarctica. Ancient tapirs would not have looked much different from their cousins of the present day, although their noses didn't grow to the present length until the last few million years. Although we don't know much about their ancient migration patterns, tapirs did migrate from Central to South America across the Panamanian Land Bridge 2-3 million years ago. All baby tapirs have striped-and-spotted coats for camouflage, and while they appear at first glance to be alike, there are some differences among the patterns of different species. Most baby tapirs weigh approximately 15-25 pounds at birth. |
Amazon Animal Orphanage
Pilpintuwasi Butterfly Farm
www.AmazonAnimalOrphanage.org
pilpintuwasi@hotmail.com
063-23-2665
Padre Cocha
Iquitos, Peru