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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Misc Biology Lesson: Tapirs

Posted by Ned Lannamann on Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 12:56 PM

Mercury intern Sahar is wearing a shirt today that, amongst other things, includes a picture of a tapir.
tapir.jpg
Tapir drawing by Robert A. Wilson; taken from tapirback.com

"What the heck is that?" we cried. "Is it an anteater? Is it a dinosaur?"

"No," she replied. "It's a tapir. It's a sort of horse/elephant/pig thing."

"Wow!" we exclaimed. So, of course our next question was, "Can you milk them?"

Sahar did not know the answer. I felt pretty certain that you could milk a tapir if you wanted to, and perhaps the milk would come out of its funny snout.

So I immediately embarked on some internet research to get to the bottom of this question. Results? Inconclusive. But I did find this, which may or may not be worth 55 seconds of your time:

So, in summation: Tapirs are cow/horse/anteater thingies that may or may not provide milk, that may or may not grant wishes when you rub their magical snouts, and that definitely love massages.

 

Commenting was not available when this article was originally published.

Comments (6) RSS

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1
i went to a wildlife preserve in argentina where there were supposed to be tapirs, but i did not see any.
Posted by miguelaron on July 30, 2008 at 1:12 PM · Report
2
Tapirs are so kick ass, but I am happy that I don't have to massage them to a Hawaiian soundtrack.
Posted by Sahar on July 30, 2008 at 1:44 PM · Report
3
OMG! It's a freaking mammal, Any mammal can be milked if you REALLY wanted to. The rael question is: Does it's milk taste good.
Posted by Beer Batter on July 30, 2008 at 3:08 PM · Report
4
Thank you mercury. Tapirs have long been one of my favorite animals, second only to manatees (the wonderful sea-cow with nipples under it's flippers).
Posted by Jennlovesbooks on July 30, 2008 at 4:22 PM · Report
5
I can only imagine that tapir milk would make some mighty fine tapir cheddar!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get myself down to the L.A. Zoo for a massage...
Posted by Tommy on July 31, 2008 at 4:23 AM · Report
6
Why was her hand not visible at the beginning of the video? What was she doing? Perverted minds want to know...
Posted by whoa on July 31, 2008 at 7:36 AM · Report

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