Tapirus terrestris, Lowland Tapir skull

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Tapirus terrestris, the lowland or Brazilian tapir, boasts an impressive geographic reach among its four living counterparts. This remarkable species spans a vast territory from Colombia to northern Argentina, and from the Andes' foothills on the west to South America's Atlantic coast on the east, where it predominantly inhabits moist forested regions in the South American lowlands. Lowland tapirs likely coexist with mountain tapir populations along Ecuador and Colombia's eastern Andean slope. They may also share habitats with southern Baird's or Central American tapir groups in northern Colombia, although data supporting these distribution patterns is limited. Meanwhile, Asian or Malayan tapirs (T. indicus) thrive in southeast Asia's tropical environments. Phylogenetic studies indicate that New World tapirs are more closely linked to one another than they are to their Asian counterpart. Specifically, T. terrestris exhibits a strong kinship with the mountain tapir (T. pinchaque), as Norman and Ashley discovered in 2000.