Baird's Tapir
Tapirus bairdii
Ancient forest engineer; patience is the only technique.
Baird's tapir is Central America's biggest land mammal and one of its best-kept secrets: up to 300 kilograms of shy, prehensile-nosed herbivore that looks like evolution split the difference between a horse and an anteater and then apologized to neither. Fewer than 6,000 are thought to survive, and Costa Rica's protected forests, Corcovado above all, are among the most reliable places on Earth to meet one. Tapirs are the forest's gardeners: they swallow fruit whole and deposit the seeds kilometers away, planting tomorrow's canopy as they walk. They swim well, nap in wallows, and follow habitual trails so faithfully that a muddy tapir highway is often your first evidence one lives nearby.
Mostly solitary and mostly nocturnal, commuting between feeding areas, water and wallows on worn trails marked with dung stations.
Leaves, twigs and fallen fruit in bulk, up to 30 kilograms a night; a flexible snout hooks browse the lips cannot reach.
Dawn and dusk near water in Corcovado, or a quiet wait at a wallow. High ISO, no flash, and let it come to you; a tapir that has not noticed you is a tapir that stays.
Never use flash or approach a tapir with a calf; startled tapirs bolt blind through anything, including you.
Generalised encounter areas, not exact locations. Each shape is a grid cell coloured by how likely the species is there.
- Very likelyCosta Rica25 km zone · high confidence · 82 records · updated 1 day ago
- Very likelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 16 records · updated 1 day ago
- Very likelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 13 records · updated 1 day ago
- Very likelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 8 records · updated 1 day ago
- Very likelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 6 records · updated 1 day ago
- Very likelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 6 records · updated 1 day ago
- Very likelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 8 records · updated 1 day ago
- Very likelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 15 records · updated 1 day ago
- Very likelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 5 records · updated 1 day ago
- Very likelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 32 records · updated 1 day ago
- Very likelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 9 records · updated 1 day ago
- LikelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 30 records · updated 1 day ago
- LikelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 8 records · updated 1 day ago
- LikelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 7 records · updated 1 day ago
- LikelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 5 records · updated 1 day ago
- LikelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 10 records · updated 1 day ago
- LikelyCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 9 records · updated 1 day ago
- PossibleCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 6 records · updated 1 day ago
- PossibleCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 5 records · updated 1 day ago
- PossibleCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 4 records · updated 1 day ago
- UncommonCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 4 records · updated 1 day ago
- UncommonCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 4 records · updated 1 day ago
- RareCosta Rica25 km zone · medium confidence · 3 records · updated 1 day ago
Jaguar
Panthera onca
Tracks along the beach at Corcovado; the animal itself is a gift.
Leopard
Panthera pardus
Cryptic, solitary, and everywhere, if you know where to look.
Mantled Howler Monkey
Alouatta palliata
The sound of the neotropics at first light.
Three-toed Sloth
Bradypus variegatus
Slow-motion cecropia specialists: look up, then look up again.