New Tapir Species!

It appears we have a new species of tapir species on our hands: the Kobomani Tapir (Tapirus kabomani). This is the first new tapir discovered since 1865 and the largest terrestrial mammal discovered since the Saola in 1992! The article calls it literally biggest zoological discovery of the 21-Century.

Scientists make one of the biggest animal discoveries of the century: a new tapir

~Thylo

 

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It is incredibly amazing that species this size are still unknown, who knows what´s left to discover. IMO I would think that the scientific name should be something like Tapirus medici, in honour of Patricia Medici which has done incredible effords to conserve all species of tapir, and if Im not wrong she was the founder of the IUCN Tapir Specialist Group.

ps. I just read this and for first time thought I would be able to start a controversial thread, but I got just 12 minutes late.

 

Me too, you guys beat me to it.

So to summarise, it seems to be smaller, darker and with a longer, more horse-like head with a less distinctive crest than the lowland tapir. Does that sound right?

And who knows what else is out there?

 

Curious to know if these 2 discoveries are one in the same.

Marc van Roosmalen, New Species, Dwarf Tapir, Amazon Association for the Preservation of Nature

 

Very exciting news!

Interestingly it diverged from the Brazilian/Mountain Tapir lineage before that split into those two species, which suggests it really is a decent species. Further, its still found in some of the same areas as the Brazilian Tapir, I wonder how the two co-exist?

 

It could be. The distributions of the two are adjacent (looking roughly at a map), with the Kobomani Tapir being distributed just north of the Dwarf Tapir. Will require comparisons of the skulls of both, and ideally DNA work. What year was the Dwarf Tapir named?

 

The cladograms in the paper point to there being a possible extra species in Ecuador.

 

In the book "Blootvoets door de Amazone" ( Dutch for Barfooted through the Amazone ) published 2008 Marc G.M. van Roosmalen mention his Dwarf tapir as being described as Tapirus pygmaeus and provides a picture of a skull and a drawing !
He discovered the species by listning to the local hunters who told him that there are living 2 different species in the area ( sounds somehow similar..... ) !
In the discription of the Kobomani tapir van Roosmalen is not mentioned in the literature-list what makes me wonder.

 

For the Zoochatters with some spare time, the book in which T. Roosenvelt mentioned the "new" tapir-species in 1914 :
Through the Brazilian wilderness / - Biodiversity Heritage Library

 

Saw this late last night - fantastic news, it's got a great name and is a fantastic new discovery.

 

I also found it very strange that Roosmalen's findings received no mention in the article describing Tapirus kabomani. Given that T. pygmaeus and T. kabomani are both described in similar terms [basically small and dark], it seems fairly likely that these names refer to one & the same species.
Mammalogists seem to have largely ignored Roosmalen's description of T. pygmaeus, but that name may yet prove to be a senior synonym of T. kabomani.

 

Well this is very good news. I was expecting this to be another "discovery" that was just splitting up a species, not a new animal.

 

Thanks TLD, I actually tried to find the original description of van Roosmalen and it seems that descriptions of his new species in general are lacking. The question now is did he ever bother to write the articles.

 

Van Roosmalen's discription "on line" should actualy be recognized but I guess the lack of a type-specimen makes it invalide.
However already Spix in the 18th sentuary made mention of a dark-colored pygmy tapir !

 

Unless this is a very small tapir, I'd have thought that this was the largest terrestrial mammal formally described since the Kouprey in 1937.

 

It is a particularly small tapir - the smallest species, at up to 110kg according to the article linked in the OP.

Saola, however, are apparently lighter, weighing 90-100kg according to Wikipedia, although with a body length of 150cm and a shoulder height of 80-90cm it has larger dimensions.

 

I wonder if any was kept in Europe or USA as Brazilian Tapir?

 

They could have possibly been kept in the past listed as Brazilian Tapir but it's unlikely. It seems people knew the difference for a long time and even if one or two had been mixed in to the captive population of Brazilian Tapir, the genes would have been long breed out.

~Thylo