Diet & Habitat Selection
Which would you choose if you
were a tapir?
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| Primary Forest |
Secondary Forest |
- Tapirs are herbivore browsers, getting all of their nutrition from leaves, stems, bark, flowers and fruits.
- In Sirena the tapir's diet consists of 67% leaves, 19% fruits, 12% stems and 2% bark.
- Tapirs have a very inefficient digestive system. An average-sized adult consumes approximately 40 kg (88 lbs) of vegetation every day. They do not root in the ground for tubers and cannot climb trees, so they must find all their food between the forest floor and about 1 ½ meters high (5 ft.).
- Secondary forests (previously disturbed areas) have a high density of plants in the understory that do not invest much energy in defense (poisons) or structural integrity, which results in soft, easily digested foliage.
- Contrary to legend, primary forests in the tropics have a relatively open understory (low plant density). Plants here have very coarse leaves and many use spines, thorns and poisons to deter herbivores.
- Tapir researchers agree that tapirs prefer to forage in disturbed habitat types (tree-falls, river banks, recovering pastures) due to a higher density of easily digested vegetation. In Sirena, tapirs spend more than two-thirds of their time foraging in secondary forest.
- That is not to say that tapirs do not utilize primary forest patches. In Sirena, these areas are an important source of succulent fruits and daytime resting sites.
- The high number of tapirs around Sirena is probably due, in part, to the mosaic of primary and secondary forest patches. It will be interesting to monitor the tapir population as the secondary forests mature.
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