Tapirus terrestris (Linnaeus, 1758)

Voss, Robert S. & Fleck, David W., 2017, Mammalian Diversity And Matses Ethnomammalogy In Amazonian Peru Part 2: Xenarthra, Carnivora, Perissodactyla, Artiodactyla, And Sirenia, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2017 (417), pp. 1-1 : 1-

Tapirus terrestris (Linnaeus, 1758)

VOUCHER MATERIAL (TOTAL = 5): Boca Río Yaquerana (FMNH 88794), Nuevo San Juan (MUSM 11181), Orosa (AMNH 73766, 74118, 74119).

OTHER INTERFLUVIAL RECORDS: Divisor ( Jorge and Velazco, 2006), Río Yavarí (Salovaara et al., 2003), Río Yavarí-Mirím (Salovaara et al., 2003), San Pedro (Valqui, 1999), Tapiche ( Jorge and Velazco, 2006), Wiswincho (Escobedo- Torres, 2015).

IDENTIFICATION: Tapir specimens collected in the Yavarí-Ucayali interfluvial region conform to the typical morphology of Tapirus terrestris

described by Hershkovitz (1954) and Husson (1978), and they do not include any examples of the unusual cranial phenotype described by Hagmann (1908) and Cozzuol et al. (2013). Measurements of our material ( table 16 ) are all within a few millimeters of homologous values obtained from Surinamese specimens ( Husson, 1978: table 55), suggesting little geographic variation in cranial dimensions across vast Amazonian landscapes despite modest mtDNA heterogeneity in this species (Thoisy et al., 2010; Ruiz-García et al., 2016).

ETHNOBIOLOGY: The principal name for the tapir is nëishamë, which can be analyzed as meaning “large game animal.” There are three archaic synonyms: awad (a monomorphemic pan-Panoan term), wisu (an archaic term that also means “black”), and danchish (synchronically unanalyzable, but seems to include the prefix dan-, meaning “knee”). The tapir is the only animal with pet vocative 13 terms: dampiada and choada (both synchronically unanalyzable, but

the first also seems to include the prefix dan-). In the language used in the Matses’ komok ceremony, the tapir is called dëpachi, a term that means “soft snout.”

The Matses recognize three types of tapirs: nëishamëdapa (“large tapir”), nëishamë çhëşhë (“black tapir”), and nëishamë mëbëdi (“stripedforeleg tapir”). According to Matses hunters, the type with striped forelegs is the smallest of the three varieties, prefers upland forest (as opposed to floodplain forest), and when chased by dogs runs without tiring out. The large variety is found along large rivers and is the type that most readily takes refuge in the water when chased by dogs.

The tapir is a principal game animal for the Matses, although tapirs are killed infrequently compared to other game species. In addition to providing a bonanza of meat, a butchered tapir is much appreciated for its fat, which is carefully rendered for frying manioc and plantains, and to make an oily broth thickened with grated manioc. Tapirs are desirable pets that quickly become tame when captured as juveniles. Even as adults, pet tapirs roam the village peacefully.

Tapirs are killed by the Matses in various ways. A hunter may happen upon a tapir as it sleeps on the forest floor and shoot it with a shotgun (formerly it would have been shot with a bow and arrows). Or, a hunter may find tapir spoor and track the animal to where it is sleeping or feeding, and then shoot it. Hunters also encounter tapirs at mineral licks. When a tapir has been scared off or runs off when shot and injured, the hunter whistles, imitating the tapir’s call. Interestingly, the tapir often replies with a whistle or comes to where the hunter has whistled, even if it has been shot. Often a shot tapir escapes, and killed tapirs are sometimes found to have healed shotgun wounds.

Tapirs are also hunted with dogs. The best hunting dogs will chase a tapir, nipping at its legs. If the dogs do this, or if the tapir tires out, it may take refuge by submerging itself in a deep bend of a stream. (If the dogs do not follow the tapir closely or far enough, the tapir will just keep run- ning and the hunter will not be able to catch up.) Once the hunter reaches the place where the tapir is submerged, he kills it. In the past the tapir would be killed in such a situation with a spear as it lay underwater. If the stream is too deep, the hunter will try to get the tapir to move away from the deep river bend and shoot it (with a shotgun or, formerly, with arrows) when it emerges into a shallower part of the stream.

Now that the Matses have acquired flashlights, they sometimes wait for tapirs at mineral licks at night. A hunter may visit a mineral lick during the day and find fresh tapir tracks. Since tapirs often return to the same mineral licks, the hunter builds a platform about 2 m off the ground and returns at dusk to wait, sitting on the platform.

An additional method for killing tapirs, which is not employed frequently anymore, is to build a trap along a tapir path, usually at the edge of a mineral lick or where tracks reveal that a tapir comes every night to feed on fallen fruits. A pole some three meters long is cut from a sapling and lashed with epiphyte stems to a tree that is right next to the tapir path; the pole is lashed parallel to the tree, with the lashed end at the top and the bottom end about 40 cm above the ground (about tapir-chest height). Next, a daggerlike bamboo blade about 50 cm long is lashed to the pole (pointing toward the tree). Thus armed, the pole is bent away from the tree and held in place by an ingenious trigger mechanism actuated by a trip wire (figs. 17, 18). When the tapir walks by, it hits the trip wire with its foreleg, releasing the spring-loaded pole with the bamboo blade. If the bamboo blade stabs it in the chest, the tapir will die close to where the trap was set. Often, however, the tapir is not mortally wounded. The trap is checked every three days or so, and if the trap has been sprung, the hunter follows the blood trail to find the dead or injured tapir. The tapir may need to be finished off with a club or by shooting.

Because an adult tapir is too large to be carried by a single person, a successful tapir hunter will return to his village to recruit other Matses, especially women, to come to the kill site and help butcher the carcass. The tapir is skinned and butchered by the women, after which everyone carries back a portion of the carcass to his or her own household. The hunter who killed the tapir takes home the ribs and other choice portions and then invites others to eat at his house. In this way, everyone in the village partakes of the tapir .

The Matses believe that, while packing tapir meat back to the village, one must not look back over one’s shoulder toward the butchering site, lest someone in the family die. Women and young men cannot eat the tail or the part of the rump near the tail, lest they begin to walk bent over like an old man. While waiting at home for a tapir trap to be sprung, the hunter who set the trap follows several dietary restrictions (e.g., he does not eat tortoise or spider monkey meat) and must abstain from sexual intercourse, lest the trap not be sprung or the tapir not be mortally injured. Additionally, men who regularly set tapir traps do not eat the liver and intestines of tapirs. Pregnant women do not eat young tapirs (or young game animals in general), lest they grow weak while giving birth. Young men likewise do not eat young tapirs (or young animals in general), lest they become cowards. Thus, only old people may safely eat immature tapirs.

When a hunter kills, eats, or sees a tapir, the spirit of the tapir may cause one of his young children to fall ill. Occasionally a tapir’s spirit makes a child ill even if there has been no contact with a tapir. The symptoms for contagion by tapir spirits are a high fever and the rolling of eyes into the back of the head. When a child exhibits these symptoms after the father has eaten or had contact with a tapir, a medicine man will collect medicinal plants known as “tapir medicine” and bathe the child with an infusion of the leaves.

MATSES NATURAL HISTORY: The tapir is dark colored. It has large ears with white tips. Its snout is soft and flexible and can be curled upward. Its feet are flat. It has much fat and a thick hide. The male has a large penis.

The tapir uses all types of habitats, including floodplain and upland forest, palm swamps, primary forest, secondary forest from blowdowns, and secondary forest from abandoned swiddens. Tapirs are especially common in the floodplains of rivers and streams. They come to Matses swiddens to eat manioc leaves, but only in swiddens that people do not visit regularly, such as those made at hunting camps.

The tapir is mostly nocturnal. It is more wary when the moon is bright. It sleeps during the day on the ground, often on dry hilltops or at the edge of a treefall. It does not sleep in the same spot every night. It does not walk around in the late morning if the sun is shining, but does when it is cloudy or raining. It travels far, crossing streams and rivers. It has many paths in the forest. It leaves its path, foraging in a large circle, and return to the same place where it had left the path.

It visits mineral licks between 7 PM and midnight, and between 2 AM and dawn (as noted by hunters that wait for tapirs at mineral licks). The tapir eats mud and drinks muddy water at mineral licks (small areas in the forest with poor drainage where minerals collect and the activity of animals make the area muddy). It always returns to the same mineral licks to drink the muddy water; that is, it visits several different mineral licks, but returns to the same ones. There is often a well-worn tapir path leading to a mineral lick. Sometimes several tapirs congregate at mineral licks and a tapir may use a mineral lick together with deer.

The tapir walks around constantly eating the leaves or succulent stems of understory plants. It bends down saplings to eat the leaves. In secondary forest it frequently bends over small Cecropia trees to eat the leaves (but not the stems). It pulls down certain types of soft vines and chews and sucks on them. It drinks water in deep bends of large streams. It defecates in the deep parts of little streams.

The tapir is usually solitary. It gives birth to a single large young. The tapir gives birth in the open, at the edge of a blowdown. It goes to eat without going far and comes back to suckle its young repeatedly. It suckles its young while lying on its side. When the young tapir grows strong, the mother takes it to forage for fruits at night, and the young tapir eats the fruits too. Then the mother takes the young tapir to a good place to sleep during the day. The young tapir leaves the mother when it becomes black (i.e., loses its stripes).

Tapirs are eaten by jaguars, but not by pumas. Large anacondas occasionally capture and eat tapirs. Large tabanid flies are always biting tapirs.

The tapir whistles loudly, saying “pin.” When a Black Caracara (a vulturelike falcon, Daptrius ater ) calls out, the tapir answers with this same whistling call, and goes to where the caracara is calling. The young tapir whines saying “chee-oo chee-oo chee-oo” when its mother leaves it. It snorts and stamps its feet. It travels through the forest making a lot of noise as it crushes through the vegetation.

The tapir eats the young leaves of dicot plants and small trees, including those of shuişhën chete (? Alchornea sp. [ Euphorbiaceae ]) and cecropias (Cecropia spp. [ Moraceae ]). It also sucks on and eats the stems of soft vines and the leaves of harder vines that it pulls down to the ground. It eats the leaves of epiphytes that grow close to the ground. It also eats the stems (and leaves) of succulent plants.

It eats many types of fallen dicot tree fruits, including those of the rubber tree ( Castilla [ Moraceae ]), dadain ( Clarisa racemosa [ Moraceae ]), figs ( Ficus spp. [ Moraceae ]), diden këku ( Parahancornia peruviana [ Apocynaceae ]), nuëkkid neste tree ( Bellucia sp. [ Melastomataceae ]), nëishamë naëşh (unidentified), echo ( Jacaratia sp. [ Caricaceae ]), and pënkad (an unidentified large tree with large fruits that the Matses also eat). It eats the mesocarp of the fruits of swamp palms ( Mauritia flexuosa [ Arecaceae ]) and isan palms ( Oenocarpus bataua ). It also eats fallen fruits of some types of epiphytes in the family Araceae .

REMARKS: Matses interviews about tapirs include many familiar aspects of the biology of this culturally important species, including its marked preference for floodplain habitats, use of paths, nocturnal visitation of mineral licks, solitary behavior, mixed diet of browse and fruit, and curious habit of defecating in water (Salas, 1996; Salas and Fuller, 1996; Henry et al., 2000; Tober et al., 2009; Link et al., 2012). Additionally, several food-plant taxa mentioned by our informants have previously been reported in tapir dietary studies (e.g., Bodmer, 1990; Salas and Fuller, 1996; Henry et al., 2000). However, the Matses state unequivocally that tapirs are killed and eaten by jaguars and large anacondas, whereas Salas (1996) claimed that adult tapirs are immune from predation. Because jaguars in the Pantanal and Cerrado are definitely known to kill tapirs as well as cattle (which are substantially larger than adult tapirs; Cavalcanti and Gese, 2010; Sollmann et al., 2013), and because green anacondas ( Eunectes murinus ) are also known to prey on tapirs (Martins and Oliveira, 1999), we do not doubt that the Matses are correct, although their accounts do not explicitly report the age of tapirs taken by these formidable predators.