Lowland Tapirs at Chester Zoo, England

All photos on this page copyright Mary Beaird 2007.

Our thanks to Mary for loaning us these photos of Chester Zoo's mom and baby lowland tapir. Chester Zoo has a long history of raising and breeding this species of tapir, allowing fans to see and learn about tapir babies every couple of years.

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Season's Greetings

Season's Greetings Everybody
(Inspired by the stories of the Nightmare-devouring Baku)

Original art by ebichu64
First posted on Tapirs Google group
December 13, 2007

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Ben's Zoo: I Spy A Tapir

Originally posted on Tapirs Google group

by ebichu64 ~ Dec 4 2007

Click the image to read the text

Mary wrote:

A newspaper article about a series currently showing on BBC 2 (UK)

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Nov 8, 2007: Fun with "elephant elephant hippo rhino***?"

(All images in this post are copyright Mary Beaird

and have been transferred from the "Tapirs" Google Group

where Mary posted them on November 8, 2007.

Text is by Mary Beaird.)

Er, okay, I've gone all shy. I feel like I'm being a bighead and I'm a little bit uncomfortable with it. (Sheryl put me up to it ^_-)

I write a comic called "elephant elephant hippo rhino...?" It's about two animals in a zoo and what they get up to to relieve the boredom when the humans aren't watching.

It was only ever meant to be a one-off but things didn't quite go to plan and #2 came out last month.

The two main characters are a Tapir called Keanu (after Keanu Reeves) and a Rhino called Dave (because everyone has a friend called Dave).

It's a bit surreal and a lot of the humour is aimed at anime and science fiction fans - with occasional shots at the gaming community and computer "geeks" in general.

It's published by Sweatdrop Studios, but don't rush and buy it online just yet as I am going to try and beg some copies back from stock and gift them to the shop, so you can buy them there and Tapir Gallery gets the benefit from selling them. On the other hand, if you absolutely can't wait until (probably) the New Year, you can buy them at Sweatdrop.com, I'll get 80% back and as I donate to the projects every month you'll be helping me to help the tapirs in a roundabout sort of way. That's all a bit surreal in itself... oh well, never mind.

Anyway, here are a few teasers of the "boys"; the baby girl Tapir with the bow is Trinity - Keanu's little cousin, who turns up for 3 pages in issue 2 (believe me, 3 is quite enough).

If the tapirs look a bit wrong it's because they are aliens poorly desguised as Tapirs.... yes.... REALLY (Well, that's MY story and I'm sticking to it!)






PS. Oh yes, there are some teeshirts knocking around as well made by a company called Genki Gear, and although I still own the characters the tees only half belong to me, so I can't get hold of any of those at the moment. But you never know, maybe later. Until then the good news there is anything I make from the sale of those will go into a Keanu and Dave soft toy fund, and if I manage to make that a reality, Tapir Gallery will get a stack of those to sell!

Anyway, enough of blowing my own trumpet. I'm off to bed. Goodnight.

[Editor's Note: Check out the review on Comic Mole.]

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Baby Mountain Tapir Made by Sergio Sandoval for Tapir and Friends Animal Store

(Originally posted on "Tapirs" Google Group.)

I wouldn't be telling the truth if I didn't say that the resin tapir (made especially for TPF) is CUTER THAN THE PHOTO. This teeny little guy was hard to photograph with the high-contrast white on dark chocolate background. Here's the story:

When we couldn't find a commercially-made plastic baby tapir, we had one made in resin. We call this little guy "Tapircito" (little tapir). At 2 inches from nose to tail, he is totally adorable and definitely "cito." Artist/biologist Sergio Sandoval created our resin baby mountain tapir especially for the Tapir Preservation Fund (TPF) to help raise money for tapir conservation in Colombia and other tapir range countries. Your purchase helps support field projects, genetic studies, and more. Sergio brought his unique artistic perspective to this creation. Tapircito is not only very cute, but also detailed and realistic. The short lines cast into the resin clearly represent the long fur of mountain tapir calves (as the babies are called). There are four toes on each front foot and three on each rear foot as in real tapirs. Not static as many plastic animals tend to be, Tapircito stands with his head curved to the left in a charmingly attentive pose. Our baby mountain tapir was first sculpted in clay by Sergio, then cast in resin at a factory in Bogotá, and finally painted by Sergio and his sister Marcela (also a biologist) using durable nontoxic paints made in the USA.

-- Sheryl (aka Tapirgal)

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Aug 11, 2007: Tapirs at Longleat

Photos by ebichu64

First posted on Tapirs Google group

August 11, 2007

Mary wrote:

Hi all,

Better late than never, here's my little bit on the Tapirs at Longleat. Better Pics next year, I promise!

We managed to pick one of the few sunny days this year has had to offer so far, so it was no surprise to find many of the animals flat out enjoying the sudden warm weather – or maybe they had all fainted from shock. The downside of taking the safari bus was that we didn’t stop as expected at the East African reserve, where the tapirs are kept by default as there isn't a large enough South American section (yet!). The Wallabys are kept there too and they're from New Zealand...

Normally you can get out of your car, have a picnic and see the animals. The bus usually stops for 15 minutes, but not this time. This was mostly due to the amount of traffic that day; the whole tour took 30 minutes longer than expected. The upside was that we got a great view of the monkeys wrecking other people’s cars; they take a fancy to the rubber trim, the wipers, and it’s no use squirting them with the windscreen washers – to them it’s just a free drink. But I wasn’t able to get close to the tapirs as I'd hoped, and all my pictures are thanks to the nifty zoom on my camera. Next time we'll hire a car and avoid the monkeys. Might be called Harold, and finally mum, Jessie.

2. Keeping cool, dad, Jethro.

Longleat have started producing video postcasts, and number 3 has the new baby Tapir "in action". The podcasts are mostly aimed at children and so the narration is a bit... well, you'll see what I mean. "Chaps" - no one talks like that in England any more, "Honest, Guv!"

http://www.longleat.co.uk/video/july07/

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April 25, 2007: Tapir Mask?

Manaus, Brazil ~ April 25, 2007

Here's another of those pointy-nosed balsa wood masks we saw in the open-air market in Manaus. In this case, it just may be a tapir.

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Tapirs of the World Cross Stitch

Cross Stitch by Sarah C. originally posted by Sue

on Tapirs Google Group

February 22, 2007

Sue wrote:

This is a picture of "Tapirs of the World." Sarah C. created the design and made the beautiful cross-stitch above. Thanks, Sarah!

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