Tapir Talk Archives

11 December 1997

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    ___  __                   Digest   11 December 1997 - Vol. 1, No. 79
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The Tapir Preservation Fund

The Tapir Gallery: http://www.tapirback.com/tapirgal/
Tapir Talk Archives and Info: http://www.tapirback.com/tapirgal/tt.htm
E-mail: tapir@tapirback.com
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TAPIR TALK   -  11 December 1997   -   Vol. 1, No. 79

Contents of this issue
    1. Tapirs, giant anteaters and other critters
    2. IUCN/SSC Tapir Specialist Group web site and newsletter




Return-Path: 
Sender: s75@ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 10:41:08 +0100
From: Stefan Seitz 
Organization: Universitaet Heidelberg
To: tapir@tapirback.com
Subject: Tapir Talk

Interspecific interactions with tapirs


Hi Janet and the other Tapir Talkers,

This is Stefan from University of Heidelberg, Germany.
In Tapir Talk No. 77 I've read about the question of mixing tapirs with
other species.

I've studied 1.2 South American tapirs at Dortmund Zoo, Germany, in
1996. They've been kept together with four giant anteaters, five
capybaras, five collared peccaries, two pudus, two screamers and one
Jabiru stork. A pair of maned wolves was segregated by a wire mash. This
South American community is succesfully established since 1975. Wolf
Bartmann, director of Dortmund Zoo, wrote about it in 1980:
"... interference of a disturbing nature is rare. The anteaters in
particular are very active initiators of interaction, often licking the
capybaras, and sometimes the tapirs, about the skin, ears and anogenital
regions, an activity in which the recipients appear to take pleasure."
I obeserved the anteaters even milking female tapirs! They contacted the
ungulates on everage one to three times a day for as long as 15 minutes,
while recipients layed immobile on the ground. On the occasion, the
anteaters made no difference between the two well known female tapirs
and the newly introduced male.
Dortmund keepers told me the giant anteaters were easy to get along with
them. I think it predominantly depends on individual and group
caracteristics of each of the mixed species wheater they can kept
peacefully together or not.

This is the only example I know. To learn more about the behaviour of
tapirs and even to make comparative studies, I want to ask for more
information about tapirs beeing kept together with different species,
especially if there occur some interactions.
Has there ever been tried a mixture including other species of tapirs?
It is known that coatis were contacting free-ranging individuals of
Baird's tapir at Barro Colorado Island, a national park in Panama
(Overall, 1980).
The South American tapir is reported to be cleaned from ectoparasites by
black caracaras and pale-winged trumpeters in Amazonian forests (Peres,
1996). I'm sure this is not the last discovery.

Yours sincerely
Stefan Seitz


Literature cited:
Bartmann, W. (1980): Keeping and breeding a mixed group of large South
American mammals at Dortmund Zoo. Int. Zoo Yb. 20, 271-274.
Overall, K. L. (1980): Coatis, tapirs, and ticks: A case of mammalian
interspecific grooming. Biotropica 12 (2), 158.
Peres, C. A. (1996): Ungulate ectoparasite removal by black caracaras
and pale-winged trumpeters in Amazonian forests. Wilson Bulletin 108
(1), 170-175.


Contact:
Dipl.-Biol. Stefan Seitz
Zoological Institute I
Departure of Vertebrate Morphology
University of Heidelberg
Im Neuenheimer Feld 230
69120 Heidelberg
Germany
e-mail: s75@ix.urz.uni-heidelberg.de

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The Tapir Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission has a
brand new web site located at:

http://www.tapirback.com/tapirgal/iucn-ssc/tsg/

The main item online right now is the 1997 newsletter, which was 20 pages
when printed on paper (longer on the web), and contains write-ups on current
in-situ tapir projects, a list of studbooks and other tapir articles.

Sheryl

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sheryl Todd  ~  The Tapir Gallery  ~  Tapir Preservation Fund    
http://www.tapirback.com/tapirgal/        tapir@tapirback.com 
Tapir Talk info & archives: http://www.tapirback.com/tapirgal/tt.htm
Deputy Chair, IUCN/SSC Tapir Specialist Group
Co-Editor, IUCN/SSC TSG Newsletter
P.O. Box 1432, Palisade, CO 81526 USA    Fax (970) 464-0377
"Promoting the Welfare of Tapirs Everywhere"
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