Tapir chase: new species found in Brazil

Tapirs are weird.

Astonishing, grand and sometimes just darling, but unquestionably weird. They're what I call a collage animal, one that looks like it was put together from a couple of different kits - like if you took a pig, mixed in a bit of hippo and gave it a sawed-off elephant trunk, an accessory described with the most wonderful and unlikely combination of words ever, "prehensile nose." They're fabulous.

You can watch a video of one if you take a look at my NatGeo blog post New Tapir Discovered: One of the Largest Mammals Discovered This Century about a new species found in Brazil. The above photo is of a pair of Malayan tapirs, not the new ones - you have to click on the story to see cool night vision photos of them, and besides, you'll want to see the video. It's the best weird-cute you'll see all day.

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