A tapir's most distinctive feature is its flexible, muscular nose — called a proboscis — which it uses like a short trunk to grab leaves, twigs, and fruit and pull them into its mouth. It can also move its nose from side to side to sniff out food on the forest floor.
Tapirs love water even more than jaguars do. They often wade into rivers and lakes to cool down, and they are strong swimmers. Being in water also helps them avoid predators, because their size and swimming ability makes them hard to catch once they are in the river.
Baby tapirs are one of the most charming-looking animals in the rainforest. They are born with white spots and stripes on their brown coat, which help them hide among the dappled shadows on the forest floor. The spots fade as they grow up, and by the time they are about a year old, they look like small versions of their parents.
Tapirs are called 'gardeners of the forest' because they eat large amounts of fruit and spread the seeds all over the jungle in their droppings — just like the quetzal and the howler monkey. Scientists have found that forests with healthy tapir populations have more variety of trees and plants, which makes the whole ecosystem stronger.