You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Angie and I have been doing the All Creatures Podcast for eight years, and over that time, I've come to listen, obviously, and... Become a podcast fanatic like you. And obviously in most of our podcast feeds, we have multiple podcasts that.
we download and listen to each week. And here's one I suggest you add to your podcast stream, and that is Curiosity Weekly from Discovery. The hosts are making sense of some of the biggest questions and ideas shaping our world. As a scientist... I'm obviously curious about many things. And outside the All Creatures podcast, I love when I can learn from other scientists about the world around us.
And that is why I love Curiosity Weekly, because they're exploring some of the other areas that I don't have time to research. You know, things like food science. You know, how does beer and wine ferment? Sleep science. That's something that we should all be interested in. How do we get a good night's sleep? What are sleep scientists doing? Studying things like ASMR?
you know how people's brains are responding and how it helps insomniacs and then things like computer science i am a biologist i understand cellular biology to the whole animal I have no idea how computers work or even my cell phones that are so powerful that we all carry. So these are things that Curiosity Weekly from Discovery are exploring each and every week. I highly suggest you add it. to your feed. And again, you can listen to Curiosity Weekly wherever you get your podcasts.
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Over 7 million different animals inhabit our planet. It's going to be a lot of fun. And the Taper probably isn't as familiar to some people. So happy World Taper Day. What can they teach us? see today emerged about 30 million years ago which is insane because we don't have a lot of mammals that emerged that long ago that haven't changed much Many species are in crisis
Welcome to the All Creatures Podcast. This is Chris. And I'm Angie. Happy World Taper Day, Angie. It is a happy day and it is World Taper Day when we're recording this. And so... I think we're releasing it very soon, so we're probably only like a day late and a dollar short maybe. Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm really excited to bring attention to –
the taper. It has been on my list for a very long time and hopefully everyone will get excited about tapers as I have been for the last week or so. It, this has been on our list for a while. It is. Again, an obscure and interesting animal. A living fossil, I read. Yes. This is one of the oldest mammals as far as species on Earth.
And I think what makes it special is it is a very close relative to the Equids. So your favorites, the zebras, the donkeys, the horses. So we're going to get into that a little bit today. Rhinos. It's in the whole family. And so it does. Makes sense of why I was just giddy all week reading this and telling John all these facts that he, of course, already knew. Sending you all the pictures this week. I'd be like, Chris, look at this one. Look at that one. So, yes, we're covering.
another parisodactyl, which is an odd toad ungulate. So yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. And the taper probably isn't as familiar to some people. So happy World Taper Day. I know. I know it's going to be fun. It's going to be a fun podcast. And just a quick shout out. Thank you to Jonathan who joined us this week on Patreon. It's you guys supporting us. Thank you. It's so great to. to see the emails we get. I just got an email from Mason out there at the El Paso Zoo talking about pronghorn.
I just, the emails, keep them coming. The comments on Instagram, Facebook. Thank you so much for the support. But again, thank you again, Jonathan. This is why I kick Angie in the rear end every week. It's like we have to record. It's people like you going out there. Yes. No. by, by helping, but by picking the taper, it was a easy peasy fun week for me. And hopefully that will come across in the podcast. And I'd like to give a huge shout out to Christian Furnes who gave us.
Glowing review on iTunes. It said we're the best animal podcast around, which inspires me to prepare for this podcast and bring you guys some fun, amazing facts about the taper, which. for the record, has one of the cutest babies around. And we're going to talk about that here. It does. It does. In a second.
It's up there with muskox. It is. Yeah. And I was just looking through my feed and our buddy Jungle Jordan, if you're not following him, Jungle Jordan 23 on Instagram or Facebook, he is amazing. And he just posted these. awesome photos from Point Defiant Zoo with the Malayan taper, which is what we're going to focus on today. We'll talk about all tapers, but I wanted to focus on the Malayan taper and the photos of the adults are gorgeous, but then they have a little one there.
So my heart went out and he, and yes, Jordan is always full of amazing facts and great photos. And I just love his feed. So he is a huge zoo educator. So big. Yeah, it was awesome. Jungle Jordan. It was last week, Angie, we did the story slam for, it was the LA Zoo was hosting it for the AAZK. So that's what the American Association of Zookeepers meeting this year that they're hosting.
I was able to participate in that. Jordan participated in that. Some of my biggest heroes, Rick Schwartz, Mike Veal. It just, it was awesome. And then it was hosted by Bradley Trevor Greve. He's hilarious. He called me a Disney princess because during my video, I had a fan tale, New Zealand fan tale dancing around me. It was pretty actually great. It was actually perfect. And mine went...
Right before John Cleese, you know, the famous actor. So I was very excited for that. Yeah. The lineup was hot. It was very, very, very good. And it's just so fun to get everyone together just talking about animals, right? Yeah, and it was all Zoom. It was all, you know, some amazing stories. So it was a lot of fun. And then just quickly, since we are covering an odd-toed ungulate, a parisodactyl, I'd like to dedicate this episode to my one and only Rosie.
She's the quarter horse mare I grew up with. She's 36 years old and just one of the loves of my life, that's for sure. So she's a good girl. Yeah, the odd toad ungulates. Yes, you got to love them. You got to love them. Okay, Angie, one of the things that always amazed me about tapers. So we're talking about the Malayan that is from Asia. And there's five species in existence today of tapers. Four and a possible I read, but yes. Yeah, four and a possible.
Well, that's true. There's one that's debatable. But let's say of the others, they're all in Central and South America. Right. Yes. Yes. Huge geographic difference. Crazy. Yeah. So it's, well, I'm sure you have a lot of fun facts for us. in evolution to try to figure out how they got there and how they're related.
But one thing is in common with all four to five species of tapers is that they are endangered and they are on their way to extinction. Yes. And that's why on this World Taper Day or just every day. I want to shine a light on this species. It's so unique. And unfortunately, I never had the chance to work with tapers. at the zoo but of course several of my colleagues have and they've said they're just fantastic and so I've spent the past week
begging, pleading John to get tapers at the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo. And for anybody who listened to the Bongo episode, I was trying really hard to get John to get Bongo, which is just stunning.
antelope species with their horns trying to get him to get bongo at a zoo and he said no because they can jump like an eight foot fence and it's just it's just too much for the uh the students to have to worry about that and things but for the past week i've been pushing taper but he's still saying no because They are a pretty big species and they need a...
mud wallow and they need a lot of shade. It does get hot here in Florida. So, but I have my, I did the, would you rather like which one's more likely? And he did say that probably taper would be more likely. But he still said no. I'm like Lucille Bald. I'm showing my age here because I grew up with I Love Lucy. I'm like Lucille Bald.
trying to get in the band trying to get in ricky ricardo's band i'm always like oh add this species at your zoo or add he should they're large you know and he he says they are so cool i mean they're really a crowd pleaser and they're just so unique because they basically look like a giant pig with a prehensile nose trunk. Yeah, yeah. Which... It's so cool. I mean, they're just fun to watch. And because they're a hoofstock and an herbivore, they're very active.
Yeah, it would be, it is great. And there's several taper species throughout accredited zoos in North America. So a big shout out to Point Defiance, but there's several others out there that have them and are trying to save them through captive breeding programs. And throughout the podcast, I'm going to be highlighting the taper specialist group through the IUCN and the team that's working to try to.
stop them from becoming extinct but those of you that aren't super familiar with the Milan taper It does have this shape of a pig, so rounded, their back tapers in the front, and they have short, bristly hairs over their body. It doesn't look like fur. And their eyes are small and on the side of their head, super darling ears, big, oval, erect. They have a short little tail.
Common with all tapers is this fleshy proboscis or nose, kind of like a half or a quarter of an elephant nose or snout that includes their upper lip and their nostrils. And somewhat similar to the pig, yet much, much different, is their toes have hooves on them, but they're not cloven like the pig or the goats. They're not like two hooves. The Malayan Taper actually has...
Four toes on each front foot and three toes on the back foot. All the toes are hoofed and what makes them a parasodactyl is those odd toes. on the back feet so the four toes on the front there there's one that's not as well developed. So I'm assuming that that's why they fall in. They're almost like, well, they're a category of their own, which we'll talk about when we get to taxonomy.
But the markings with the Malayan taper are really what set them apart from the South American species because they're super fun. They're almost like the markings of a panda. black or dark brown in color from basically the shoulder blade forward, including the front legs, all black. And then around their belly or their barrel region is white. And then running down their back to the dock of their tail is still white, but both legs are this black, dark brown chocolate color and the tail as well.
So they basically just have this white region in the middle. And then the two, the front and the back half are black. So it's like an Oreo cookie. Yes. There you go. Yes. That's a better analogy than even a panda. So yeah, totally different because the South American species for lack of. better description are just brown gray black in color right they very yeah they're solid they don't have this really cool coloring uh that researchers think it's probably to help them hide from predators such as
Big cats, tigers, in their home region. But baby tapers, Chris. I know. I know. They are adorable. They are adorable. I give you that. I give you that. Yes. And so their coat pattern is chocolate brown in color, but the whole coat is covered in vivid spots and zebra stripes. Yeah. It's a mix. It's a mismatch. Yeah, like white spots on their legs and then like stripes down their side and back with some spots.
It's in their face. It's just so cute. So Chris will put some photos up on our show notes so you can take a look. That's important for camouflage, right? I mean, predators and stuff. Yeah. Right. Like you think of a baby deer, they'll just like lay in the bush and hide. I'm sure it's somewhat of a similar evolutionary adaptation.
So just so cute. And I probably didn't do them justice. I don't think I did the nose justice, but we'll talk a little bit more about that when we get to fun physiological facts about how unique this fleshy.
snout is well when you look at him i mean it's it this is thing this lived with uh not only i mean we always go you know not only with saber-toothed cats and all those you know mammoths and all that they've gone back tens of millions of years so some of these craziest prehistoric animals we talk about tapers walks right alongside them the giant rhinos all of that you know throughout the world so
The one thing that got me and shout out to Mike and Jill from L.A. Zoo, you know, when they were taking me around, I did see Taper there and then also San Antonio Zoo. I got to work up close with their Taper. Is how big they are. They are big. These are not small. No, these are not small pig size. Yeah. And that's one of John's things about having them at the Santa Fe College teaching zoo is.
They need a lot of space, which that's not too big a problem there. But in the same instance, they're big in this. We don't want students to get like plowed over by them. That's true. I mean, because I mean, they six to eight feet in length or up to two and a half meters long, 500 to 1200 pounds. So up to 540 kilograms, three to three and a half feet at the shoulder. So that's over a meter.
And females are a little bit larger than males, which is kind of rare. I love that. Yeah. When I found out that fact about the sexual dimorphism. On the female side, she was bigger. I was trying to think of other species where we've seen that before. And my mom brain shut down and I couldn't think of any. I didn't Google it. Can you think of any others? Oh, no.
Fish. I sit here all day. No, I can't think. I'm trying to think of mammals. I can't think of any other mammal. And obviously I didn't Google it and obviously we're tired. No, I mean in insect world and others. Oh, yeah. I was only thinking mammals. But thinking of mammals, I mean not whales. I can't think of anything in the ocean that's a mammal. The females are larger.
Anything on land? There's no predator? Some of our listeners right now are like, come on, Angie and Chris, the blank, blank. They're like, this is definitely. So we're obviously overlooking something. No, hoofstock. I'm trying to think. Well, send in your suggestions, my friends. Talk to us on email or send us on social media. I don't know. They'll probably come to us at some point. All right, Angie. So Malayan taper from Asia.
Obviously, their native habitat has shrunk drastically. Where you find them today is still in parts of South Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma.
parts of thailand like still hanging out there obviously malaysia you know the malayan peninsula and then parts of sumatra and these again are they're forest dwellers tropical wetlands rainforests they are not you know out in the plains or anywhere like that they need to be at like like you said with john talking about them undercover they need shade they need places to hide
And they're kind of elusive. They love water. Yeah, almost like Akapi. You know how the Akapi are really elusive in Central Africa. So the Malayans, yeah, very much so in that part of the world. Now... This is interesting because, you know, we always talk about why care the Malayan taper. And I know you dug into this a little bit too. Very, very, very important.
ecological niche in these forests because they are a large herbivore. They are a very large herbivore. And I think we just talked about this. But one of the things I talked about with elephants recently was how elephants disperse seeds farther than birds. Well, taper is very similar. Very large mammal eating these. different plants, dispersing seeds throughout the rainforest force, helping maintain these ecosystems. So very, very important.
Well, yes, Chris, to touch on that, there was a study with Lowland Taper where researchers collected like 135 samples of poo or dung, as they call it. And on average, there was about 122 plant species. From fruits to roots to grasses. So the IUCN Taper Specialist Group calls them the gardeners of the forest. Without them, forest structure and diversity in the areas where they inhabit.
would look very differently without the taper. So that was one of my main points for why care. My first two are, they're so cool looking and they have the cutest babies. Yes. But then I have seed disperser or the gardeners of the forest, but also tapers are known as umbrella species. And what that means is they live in these tropical ecosystems.
There's a huge, huge biodiversity in the habitats where they live, both in the Malayan Peninsula, Indonesian area, where the Malayans live, but also in South America. where the new world tapers live. And an umbrella species is so critical because if you protect them, if you choose to protect them and their habitat, you're also protecting a large umbrella of... other species such as wildcats, monkeys, deer, just birds, reptiles, insects, plants we probably haven't even identified yet.
If you care about the taper and you work hard to protect them, you're going to be saving a lot of other species. And then lastly, we should care about tapers because they are living fossils. So I don't know if you want to touch on that with evolution a little bit, but it's pretty rad. Yeah, they are. They are, like I said, they are very ancient. Haven't changed a lot. in the tens of millions of years, which is, which is crazy. I remember Angie, I'm bringing it up now. I'm thinking of it. Hyena.
Females are larger than males. Oh, good for you. I'm sure one of our hyena fans is like... Come on, guys. Like, why did you not know that? But yes, good one, Chris. That's why you get paid the big bucks, which we don't. You don't. The females. Yeah, I know. We don't get paid anything, really. But thank you for your support. Oh, okay.
So one of the things, obviously, going to this part of the world, I really wanted to talk about a little bit and do a little bit of digging is palm oil. Because, you know, it is such a huge issue. I thought I would do a little bit of digging more to explain what's going on with palm oil so people are a little bit more educated on it. I'm more educated on it now after doing this. Are you changing some of your shopping habits?
Yes. I'll tell you what I did. Okay. I'll tell you what I did as I weaved this in. All right. So palm oil, these palm trees are from Africa and they were ornamental brought over. by the British in the 19th century to Asia so India and parts of Malaysia Indonesia so these were ornamental they were just beautiful palm trees that they brought over
Well, they discovered, oh, this oil that comes from these palm trees and these nuts is great. It's very edible. It works great. It is a... oil that is very easy to use it actually has some preservative properties so in the early 20th century they started to use palm oil but it still was not that big of a deal yet Now, today we know palm oils in almost everything. In 50% of package products. Yeah. It's in everything. 50% of package products.
We find in supermarkets have palm oil in them. Even deodorant and lipstick and toothpaste has palm oil in it. Well, I'm going to have to check mine. I just am finding all – I have been really happy recently finding paper. containers filled with deodorant. So instead of it being plastic casing holding it, it's paper. And actually Target here in the States has a whole bunch.
I have to pick from in the women's section, buy a whole bunch. I mean like three or four different kinds that I'm trying out, doing little smell tests every day to see which one works better. So I was like, not that one. Not that one. No, I'm like, me and the baby are like, poor Maddox is like, not that one, mom. Because, you know, he's up in there all the time. But...
But I found one for John. There was Old Spice in paper. I'm voting for my dollar at Target by buying paper-contained deodorant. But I don't know if it has palm oil in it, so now I'm going to go have to inspect that. Yeah, look, down here in New Zealand, ours are in glass, but I'll look for paper. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so what's interesting, so Malayan, Malaysia.
Malaysia is the world's second largest producer of palm oil. They're right behind Indonesia. So between Malaysia and Indonesia, They produce approximately 85% of the world's palm oil. So that's why it's perfect to talk about this during the Malayan taper. Now. Palm oil commercialization, like I said, began in the early 20th century, but really didn't start growing until the 1960s. So, God, 60 years ago, you know, 50, 60 years ago.
is when we started to see palm oil grow. Because Malaysia and parts of Indonesia were getting away from rubber and tin, you know, older commodities. And palm oil started becoming the big thing.
Now, today in Malaysia, 5.1 million hectares are converted to palm oil plantations. So that is... I can't really even wrap my... brain around how big that is i i looked it's about i think it's about the size of massachusetts okay that's helpful for me probably not from our international listeners but that's big take my word for it Especially if you're sitting in Boston traffic, which I have to do a few times a year when I'm visiting family.
Oh, John's family. Not mine. John's family. Oh, they're my family. I love them. Boy, the traffic there. It doesn't matter what time of day it is. Going north and south from Boston. But I love it. It's worth it. It's amazing. Well. When I did look for this, that is about how much farmland there is in all of the UK.
Wow. Okay. Yeah. So it's not the size of the UK. The UK is much bigger than that, but all the farmland in the UK is just a little bit bigger than that. And this is all on a single crop. palm oil. That's it. So it's huge. It's absolutely huge. Now, what does that mean? That means that's 5 million hectares of tropical forest gone, rainforest gone. Prime habitat for tapers, tigers, old orangutans, all the species there are gone. All of that.
habitat is gone for those species. Sumatran rhino that used to live there, gone. Clouded leopards, sun bears. All of those animals that depended on that, the habitat's gone and it's still disappearing. That is why palm oil is such a hot topic issue because these companies down there are making so much money on it.
that they're expanding. So now palm oil, it's cheap to produce, it's easy to produce, and it can be, you know, in today's, not with COVID, but pre-COVID times, and it's going to come back. International markets, it's easy to get this stuff around the world. Another issue that I wanted to touch upon really quick is in Indonesia and Malaysia, sadly, child labor is used on many of these plantations.
just recently the end of 2020 the united states is banning the imports of palm oil from the largest producer in malaysia which is sim darby it they own most of the plantations there So the US has banned them from importing palm oil because of their child labor practices. So it's estimated that there's about 850,000 people working on these palm oil plantations in Malaysia that are...
Illegal immigrants from Indonesia and up to 200,000 of those are children working, which breaks my heart as a dad. Like I look at my boys and I can't imagine them out there. So, you know. that's a whole different discussion for a different day but yeah different topic for a different day for sure but it is it is it is something to consider when you are buying products where they're coming from and do they have
And are they not only lacking, obviously, child labor laws, but also workers' rights? I mean, for adults and the workers' conditions. From being from the States, we have OSHA and a lot of policy and a lot of oversight to make sure those things don't happen. But not all countries have that. And so it's something to really think about from the clothes you wear to the food you eat. Well, and informed consumers. We are changing the world. We are changing.
You can vote with your dollar and say, I don't like that you do that. It's making a massive difference. And some people call it cancel culture or things like that. Once again, a different pod for a different day, but it's just a personal choice. I don't stand with what you stand with, so I'm going to do something else for myself and my family. It shouldn't be a political issue. It should be. It's a human rights issue. Everybody should be for human rights and preserving.
nature and habitats and whatever. And I know every now and then we get some hate mail that, oh, we got political. I'm not trying to be political. I'm just giving you facts. These are the facts. These companies were exploiting children. to make a profit. So I'm not going to buy from them. Sorry. That's an informed consumer. That's not a right left thing. That's the right thing to do thing. Now, but to weave that in, Angie, it's very good because...
We are making a difference. And I'm going to tell you how. So the roundtable of sustainable palm oil, we've mentioned this before, I think a year or two ago, RSPO certifies sustainable palm oil. Now, about 20% of the global products have been certified as sustainable and it's growing. And I do have the list. I'll see if I can link it to the website. When I update it to the report and the list of companies that they've certified. So, for example, I went in and looked.
And I did use the barcode scanner, which I'll talk about here in a minute, the apps. And again, I'm shopping in New Zealand, so it's a little bit tougher because that's more designed for products in the United States. But I did look. McDonald's surprise, not surprisingly, McDonald's scores well. Okay. And this past weekend, I was out with the boys up in Auckland and.
Little Wyatt wanted to go to Wendy's instead of McDonald's. He's tired of McDonald's. He doesn't like McDonald's. He's like, I want to go to Wendy's. So we went to Wendy's. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to Wendy's anymore because they scored really poorly. on sustainable palm oil no frosties for you no no and their burgers are good but i am not going to wendy's they score really
poorly, they are sourcing palm oil from companies like this Darby one or some of these others that are not using sustainable palm oil where McDonald's does. And again, when you have kids, you'll understand you go to McDonald's like once a week. and having knowledge about palm oil and who's using it who's using
who's not using it, who's using sustainable palm oil or trying to, that's just powerful. Knowledge is power. And then you can make your choices from there. And you're not a bad person if you go to Wendy's once in a while. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. I'm a bad person. I went to Wendy's and supported them.
No, you're not. But at least you can inform decisions and then go from there. And when you're grocery shopping, you have more time. You could opt for this or opt for that. But there's always a big push. during Halloween with all the accredited zoos to not buy candy that's made from palm oil or, or a big list of.
The good types of candies that are either made with sustainable palm oil or no palm oil. Mars is a good one to support. And so I just bring that little cheat sheet that's on my phone that some of the zoos put out. And that's how I buy my Halloween candy. it's all just about taking as extra few steps. So how do we do that, Chris? Right. So I did the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo app and there's a couple other apps out there.
And it was interesting. I did download it here in New Zealand and scan some of my products. They didn't come up, but again, I'm in New Zealand. But I did look it up. So I looked up my Doritos. And so when you... You type in the type of product that said this product is orangutan friendly. So I feel good about that. And I went through my cupboard and I looked at some other products. So like General Mills, some of these major...
producers kelloggs is up in there that's doing pretty well looking at the list so you should you know just makes you feel good and then you look and say okay wendy's i'm not going to go there and i'm going to tell you why and hopefully it will make them change enough people do that then they start using sustainable palm oil. We make a difference. We absolutely make a difference. Well, why do you think there's a paper covered deodorants in Target? Yeah.
Because they knew people like me were either getting it online or... going to independent buyer, independent stores, which I still actually try to buy from small shop owners when possible. But so they said, hey, we want to get our skin in the game, basically. So now it's at Target. And I'll tell you what, down here, all the straws we get are paper.
paper straws we're not there yet but we are getting better uh i still carry my metal straws in my purse and it's so funny whenever i put them in a drink I'm thinking, huh, I wonder what was in my purse that the straws were. I'm like, whatever. It's fine. all right so get off there you go on palm oil and we haven't covered it in a long time it is a major issue it there is things you can do out there and
You know, I just felt it was important to bring it up, especially with the Malayan taper who is suffering because of palm oil plantations. Direct effect on them. Sick of those trivia podcasts that you don't even understand how to operate and they just have too many levers and buttons? There's got to be a better way. Now there is with Good Job Brain, an offbeat quiz show and trivia podcast that makes learning new things easy and fun.
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Anyway, make sure to check out the Mischief Everything podcast everywhere where you find your podcasts. Talking about this ancient animal, Angie. Getting into evolution. Obviously, it is a mammal. Parasidactyl, these odd-toed ungulates. Love them, love them, love them. And we've talked about it. All of them. Our equids. Yeah, our equids. So our horses, zebra, wild asses, donkeys, and our rhinos.
are all part of this order. Now, specifically, the family is Taper Day and four or five. So we have the Malayan, which is... all the way across the Pacific Ocean near me, kind of near me. I mean, I'm in Southern Hemisphere, somewhere up there in the Northern Hemisphere is where they're at. The other tapers. That I have, the Baird's Taper is the one, I think that was San Antonio Zoo, that I was able to interact with. It's also called the Central American Taper.
so that is there in mexico obviously central america and south america the south american taper So the northern parts near Colombia with Anna and Brazil, Argentina. So Peru goes all the way down. The mountain taper, which is, I believe the one, Jill will correct me if I'm wrong or not, the one in the LA Zoo. So the woolly taper, it was really like the coat was really thick. It was really kind of cool.
And again, that's northern parts of Central America. So the mountains of Colombia. And the Andes. Ecuador. Yeah. Yeah. All parts you got to visit. I'm jealous. Peru. Then the one that's disputed is the little black taper. So we'll see. That one's from Columbia. It's not, they don't quite know if it's its own species. But I will say, like you're right, they're all endangered or vulnerable towards extinction. Now, what makes that so sad is, again, this is one of the world's oldest mammals.
Again, the living fossil taper, their ancient relatives first appeared like 50 million years ago. Like their feet, when I look at their feet, it reminds me of the early equids. Yes. Because when I wrote my book, I always forget I wrote a ding book that's out there. I don't forget. I think it's super awesome and you should promote it more. I hope it's on our website somewhere. I will. I will. It's probably one of the only things that we have that people can purchase.
i know i know i know but you know the handbook for horses and donkeys and when i when i wrote up the the history i love the history of the horses And, you know, Eohippus and Mesohippus, all these early, early versions of Equids, you know, they had those three toes like the taper, you know, and then they gravitated to one. So the first taper is way ancient, about 50 million years ago. The true taper, what we see today, emerged about 30 million years ago, which is insane.
Because we don't have a lot of mammals that emerged that long ago that haven't changed much. And the tapers are a version of something that has not changed much in 30 million years, which is insane. Because they don't need to change because they're perfect. They've evolved to, yeah. They're just, oh, they're amazing. Now, where?
There is still some debate on where they first emerged. I did read some parts where they thought Europe in one paper. And then in another paper, they said North America. I was going to say North America if you're going to play a quiz game with me. Yeah. That's always the answer. It probably is because that's where rhinos and horses originated from. So it only makes sense that tapers originated from there too.
So I think that's the line of thinking, but they're finding fossils in Europe that might date pretty old. So I don't know if they, there was some bridge 30 million years ago that they were able to go or not. Well, and the amount of. species that have been recovered that are extinct i mean 15 or i mean very a lot of fossils so they've been they're found all over the place right
Yeah. They were. I should say they were. Well, they were. Yeah. They were all over Europe. They were all over. I think Africa is the only place I didn't see where they were, but they were all over Europe and North and South America and Asia. Now, we do know Asian and American tapers diverged about 20 million years ago. So this is, again, this is what makes them so amazing. Yeah, this is bonkers. They diverged 20 million years ago. They don't look that much different.
There's not a huge, huge massive difference. All the babies have spots and stripes. Yeah. So this is an animal that has not... changed much in 20 million years we're on paper day they're perfect that's what makes them so amazing it's so cool oh yeah you would think 20 million years there would be an alteration here an alteration there that was massive differences
nothing 20 million years separates them and besides some genetics which i'll talk about here in a second they they physically look very similar behave very similar are very similar. It's crazy. Now they did not get to South America until about 3 million years ago. So they're hanging out in North America for all that time. Then that Panama is miss.
finally you know closed where you had land that land bridge where a lot of the possums and i think other species went back and forth sloths i think went back and forth finally were able to migrate What's really cool is tapers were in North America up until the end of the last ice age. That is very cool. Yeah. So they were there, they were there roughly five to 10,000 years ago.
The giant taper in China died out about 4,000 years ago. So there was a species that far north in China. Real quick on, again, this is what's crazy, genetics. If you understand genetics, the Malayan taper... Chromosome, total chromosomes is 52. Because that's a diploid. Mountain tapers 76. Baird's tapers 80. South American tapers 80. So I don't know if somebody's crossbred them. I mean, we did crossbreed horses and zebras, but the Zorse. So horses have how many chromosomes, Angie?
64. Yes, you remember. I was a good teacher, I think. Yes, you were a brilliant teacher. Yeah, right. And I think it was the... And now I teach that stuff, so there you go. Yeah, I think it was the common zebra, the plain zebra, 44. But are those fertile? No, I don't think so. Okay, so. But...
Yeah. Anyways. So I don't know if you could, you probably could a Malayan and like say a Barrett's taper and see what you get. But anyways, that's a huge difference. 52 and 80 chromosome numbers, but they look the same. They look the same. Mine is the cool. And I realized I called it panda coloration, but it's reverse panda. Yeah. Because pandas are white on the top and the bottom and black in the middle. Middle. Still Oreo cookie.
Oreo cookie, yeah, whatever. That was the better analogy. But yes, so yeah, besides the coloration and the larger size, physically – Pretty similar. Behaviorally, for the most part. Well, the proboscis, the nose is shorter in the South American species, a little bit longer in the Malayan taper. Still? Still, they look pretty similar. It's crazy. It's crazy. Really quick factoid. The odd toe ungulates, they think, emerged about 55 million years ago.
and it was on an island off india they found uh combatherium thawisi so they think that's like the the originator of all of these i just looked that up and then Because we're going to be here all day talking about tapers. The Titanic taper, I had to bring it up. I finally found a mega species. Because I look every week. And some weeks I'm running out of animals. Never. No. That are huge. That are huge. Maybe. Okay. Yeah.
The Titanic taper in Asia was the size of a white rhinoceros, weighed about 2,000 pounds or 900 kilograms. Tell me about its nose. I... I don't know. I didn't put anything on the nose because I don't think that fossilizes. Yeah, that doesn't. It's just tissue. But five feet at the shoulder, almost nine feet long. Yeah, I'm visualizing the nose on a rhino, basically.
Yeah, huge, huge, huge, huge. But black rhinos, interestingly enough, they have the upper lip. Prehensile, yeah. Prehensile for grabbing. And similar to like giraffes have a split lip that are... prehensile like uh so but it doesn't incorporate the whole nose right the whole snap well let's i mean really quick these can live up to 30 years in the wild
36 years under human care, can run up to 30 miles per hour. They do like to swim. They're very good swimmers. But let's jump into that nose. I mean, that nose is, it's crazy. You know it. You know it, right? Yeah, Chris, it's so fun. I sent you a picture of them doing the Fleming behavior that a lot of Equids do, a lot of Hostack in general do it, where...
Flumin response or behavior where the animal will curl their upper lip, it looks like, or their giant snout if you're a taper, is really key for the animal to be able to smell things. And what's happening is when they do the flamen response, it opens up a pair of ducts into their mouths, which sends odors. Like if the female is in estrus or... When I feed Romeo, when he eats like a cereal bar, apple flavored, something different, it sends either olfactory or smells, molecules basically.
into a special sensory organ called a vomer nasal organ. And that way they can really just smell in those smells, if you will, for lack of science terms. And so it's one of my favorite behavior responses. from Equids in general. And so I sent Chris a picture, maybe he'll put out a show notes of a taper doing it. But because a taper has such a long snout, it's just, it's just incredibly.
cute. And, and, and that's how they can detect a lot of odors in the air, depending on if it's a female or what type of food they're eating. So Yes, that nose. It's really key besides the flim and response. And similar to an elephant, it's made up of tissue. And so there's no bones and it's not a bony internal structure.
I read somewhere that when they are in water, if they submerge themselves below water, they'll even stick their snout or the proboscis, their nose, up like a snorkel if they need to get air. So really cool stuff. And I know we covered, of course, trunks when we talked about elephants. We had to. But for the first time, Chris, I got really dorky.
And I don't know if it's because it's a parasyndactyl or what, but I just felt- The first time? The first time you got dorky? No, it's- Okay. Let me finish. This week, maybe. I'm like, I have to say, no, no, no. This is the first time I really dorked out about skulls. Okay. Okay. So yeah, I, on my show notes and everything, I just kept coming across photos of their skulls and really trying to start to understand how unique for, for paracidactyl.
And really dorking out about how unique the taper skull is compared to like, if you want to think about a rhino or an equid or horse or something like that, because it. It looks like a typical skull, except that there's a large, what's called sagittal crest, or basically a bone that runs along the middle of the skull that sticks out like almost like a ball cap. And these unusually shape.
bones off the front of the skull are critical for attaching ligaments and muscles and tissues of the proboscis. And since of course, horses don't have them and rhinos for the most part don't have them, they don't have the sagittal crest. So I just, it just was really fascinating to me. how in some ways they are very similar to other parisodactyls, but also very different. And when you look at the skull morphology, you can really, really tell.
they have this whole different frontal skull shape just because of their awesome nose. Yeah. And so I put a skull photo in my notes and I've never done that before. I mean, I did vampire bats. I go back. I look at that skull because that skull is scary. And I think I used it for our photo for it. But, yeah, I did see that, that supportive. structure for the notes. Yeah, and if we do another quiz show between me and you or anybody who wants to play...
Hint, hint, that photo will be on there. And I'll say, which species is this from? Because I just love it. It's so cool. End of the year. And once again, it goes to show how important this proboscis, this nose is for them. functioning on a daily life that they they needed to be mobile and it is soft tissue uh and that's where it attaches to the front of the skull yeah yeah no i mean
It's cool. Form and function. We always talk about that, too. And, you know, talking about they, you know, again, use it to browse and do the things that they do. As far as nutrition, folivores. Frugivores are eating fruit. This one was new to me. Lignivores. So I looked that up. Have you heard that one before? I haven't, but I'm familiar with the lignin part of the plant. Right. Especially with phytoestrogens and all that. Barks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cellulose, high fiber.
There you go. There you go, scientist. Well, it was process of elimination, right? No, no, no. But that is a new term. I have not heard that term. Yeah, lignivores. So they do eat like twigs and bark and branches. But then they do eat a lot of fruit. And like Angie said, over 122 species of plants. Aquatic vegetation. So we'll spend time in water rooting around.
Yeah, they eat a lot. They eat a lot. And their digestive system is very similar to equids and rhinos. I mean, that hindgut fermenter. Yeah, they have a simple stomach and then a very, very long hindgut as far as... the small intestines and large intestines. They have a large cecum where that's where they're doing all of their microbial digestion of the lignans and other plant cellulose material. Let the bugs break it down because they don't have enzymes to do that.
Yeah, there you go. Now, what's interesting... And I would like to do a whole podcast on that some other time. But not today. It's not today, no. We're already running late because we're just dorking out on these guys. It's fun. Just really quick, Ang. What I found interesting, I didn't find a lot on this. I didn't dive that deep down this hole. But as far as being preyed upon, not very often. I mean, they said tigers and leopards and maybe jaguars.
For the ones in South America, maybe the doles, that's a species you wanted to cover. But it's rare. They're not preyed upon a lot by larger predators because they are so big. They've got very tough skin. They're elusive. So their number one predator that concerns humans. Absolutely. After 20 million years of just... Doing their own thing, right? Surviving against, you know, saber-toothed cats. Think of all those bear dogs, wolf dogs, all those things we've talked about. The hooves.
wolf but that was not one sloth bear who knows wait didn't we just do because during the alligator one didn't we just do like the hooved crocodile or something something yes just gnarly yeah the insanity that's are the insane animals that have been living for 20 million years this thing's just be bopping along like just not even being noticed so yeah amazing creatures so what are some of these behaviors of this elusive taper
Well, part of its elusive nature is that it's mostly nocturnal. Some researchers classify it as crepuscular, which means it's out at dusk and dawn. In general, it's kind of difficult to study mullein tapers because they are nocturnal. So there's still a lot that's unknown about this species. We can gain a lot of information from...
studies of them living under human care. But out in the wild, we need more researchers. So if any of our listeners are out there thinking, hmm, what should I do with my life? I say, go for it. Go help save these Malayan tapers or any really taper or really any creature. But yeah, there's just not a ton that we know. But what is known is that they love water. And they're terrific swimmers and they're divers. They love to cool off with water. They'll eat aquatic plants.
They may even get romantic in the water. So we'll talk a little bit more about that when we get to breeding behaviors. But yeah, very, very comfortable in the water. And so when you see them under human care, they'll often have a wallow that they can bathe. swim in or just splash and just have a party in the water, which once again will cool them off, help them keep insects down to a minimum. And in general, they're not super social, which that's...
Also very different than if we think of our equids, like horses and zebras that live in herds or bands or things like that. Malayan tapers are... pretty much going to be solitary unless it's a female with her offspring. But unlike horses, which are considered like flight animals, so typically with a horse, if you... scare it, or if it gets spooked, it's going to run away. A taper is going to do that most of the time. But...
Once in a while, if you mess with the wrong taper, they're known to be unpredictable and they will really fiercely defend themselves. And especially if they have offspring. So when you're looking through the literature or historical records, there's definitely incidents of people being bitten by tapers, including even under human care, which is also one of the reasons my husband.
I would prefer students not working with them. It's very rare. And usually that's not the case when they're under human care, but there are incidents of them defending. themselves or their territory or they're young and they're big and so you don't want to mess with mama taper that's for sure no no no no but chris one of my favorite behavioral facts is the way tapers communicate with each other, which is very, very different than their cousins, the horses and zebras and things like that.
They're known to do a high-pitched whistle. And we can put a video on our show notes or you can just Google it. But it sounds like car brakes or like... me whistling for my dog. It's just really, really unique. In researchers in 2010, you got to love researchers, they actually compared taper vocalizations. with equines and other parasidactyls. And this is in the Journal of the Acoustic Society of America. And what they found is equines, tapers, rhinos, their vocalizations, although they sound...
different, tapers, whistle, horses, whinny, things like that. They, the tones and the durations can change. Whereas The artiodactyls, the even-toed ungulates, so cows, sheep, deer, the cloven-hooved animals, their vocalizations are what they call tonal. So they're not changing in frequency. They don't have this whole range in their spectrum. So I thought that was super fascinating that tapers with their whistles, which is really easy to pick out, may have different tones and different durations.
which although it hasn't been studied, I'd be curious to know if they mean different things, right? And I don't think that's been looked at as far as my knowledge. If somebody out there is a taper expert, let me know. I just thought that their whistle was so unique for an ungulate. And of course they make grunts and snorts and other, I guess, hoofstock-like noises that are pretty common. But yeah, most don't whistle.
No. Don't hear that often. Young researchers out there or old researchers or anybody, we need to know more about that because, I mean, that snout, that whistle, the babies, I think for me it's going to be World Taper Week. Yeah, they are amazing. They are amazing. Now, speaking of babies, Angie, these things are elusive, not easy to study, but what do we know about the repro? Sure. So regarding the Malayan taper. Breeding will typically...
occur in the spring, which is April, May, or June. And as far as courtship behaviors, I didn't really run across any. I'm sure there are some. They probably have a lot to do with making sure that the female is in estrus, the Fleming response, I would imagine. where the males will sniff a female and her hindin and do the flim in response to see if the female is an estrus, trying to smell those estrogen molecules, I suppose, in her urine.
But what we do know is they will breed on land or in the water. So there is that. And several bouts of copulation will occur typically. And when a female is bred, her gestation period is going to be long, which is very similar to horses and rhinos. It's going to be anywhere from 13 to 14 months. And then when a Malayan taper calf is born, it's about 15 pounds at birth.
Which is much smaller than a full. That's tiny. Yeah. It's not very big. Much, much smaller. But yeah, a full is 100 pounds. Right. Yeah, you think a 1,000 pound horse, about a 100 pound full. So, but. They're small and they're super cute, right? They have that brown, dark gray hair with the white stripes, the spots, which once again is camouflage in the jungle forest. Now that...
beautiful coat pattern will fade away after four to seven months, depending on the species. And that's when they'll take on their adult coat, which in the Malayan taper is that beautiful black and white patches. The young tapers will stay with mom for about a year or two, and they're usually weaned after about a year. Both males and females will reach sexual maturity around two to four years. And when a female does become of breeding age,
keep in mind that she'll only produce a calf. I'm assuming it's a calf. a baby taper. I looked, I looked everywhere. I looked everywhere. I could not find. I know a calf doesn't really make sense. I guess it's a rhino calf, elephant calf, but full is horse zebra. Full. So anyways, if somebody knows that, let us know. Chris and I love being wrong and learning, right? That's how you learn. But anyways.
The young female, once she does reach such maturity, she will not start producing. She will only produce one offspring about every other year. So they have a slow, and they only produce one. So just like in the horse world, twins are not a thing. They're rare. And so one calf, for lack of better terms. Every other year is a very slow reproductive rate or generational interval, which can be pretty bad if you're an endangered species, right? As far as helping you rebound your population. Yep.
Yeah, no, I mean, looking like we talked about at the beginning, endangered, if the Malayan taper is endangered, there's estimates of 2000. 2,500 left adults, you know, maybe 3,000. That's about it. That's so low. Very low, very low. Then you go to the Baird's taper. So you're looking at 5,500 left. roughly and again this is data is not exactly up to date so it could be lower than that right fewer than 2500 mountain tapers
And then they don't have any estimates on the low land or the one new species that might be there in Columbia. So they're all extremely low numbers. I mean, and this is an animal, again, that has not changed much in 20 million years. And is headed towards extinction. Because of human activity. And is the big mega herbivore. Super important for the environment. Yeah. Umbrella species. Gardeners of the forest. So, yeah, really important.
Yeah, they are. They are. They are. They are. So again, conservation tip of the week. Use the palm oil app. Angie, who is out there fighting for them? I know there's some good groups out there. Right. Yes. So I want to highlight this week, the taper specialist group. We'll put this link on our show notes, but y'all, y'all. Oh boy. I've been in the South too long. Edit that out, Chris. Yikes. No, no, no. Oh, my. I'm tired. I'm tired. Yeah. Yikes. Everybody should go to www.
tapirs, T-A-P-I-R-S dot org. Because the Taper Specialist Group is a team of scientists that work with the IUCN and their goal is basically to save tapers from extinction.
conserve them in several different ways, restoring their habitat and managing the species under human care. And the team of researchers and scientists and just specialists do this by... looking over the data, trying to determine the status, how many there are, where they're at, and of course, publishing data on tapers in general and their specific needs.
how much habitat, things like that. Of course, they promote research and distribute materials. They work with stakeholders, different organizations, whether it's federal, state, private, things like that. And then they, of course, are big educators. So they do this with minimal funds. And that's why if you are looking for an awesome conservation organization group to support this month. The taper specialist group, www.tapers.org is phenomenal because.
They know everything, right? They could probably have answered our questions that we had today, right? You and I had a couple of questions of why four toes in front and three in the back. And what other questions we had? Oh, and what are some of their courtship behaviors? Other nitty gritty details that I'm just not privy to because I'm not a taper expert, although I want to be after this podcast.
I know. I know. So check them out. Uh, the IUCN taper specialist group. You can also find them on Facebook. Just search taper specialist group. Uh, and. if you follow them like them uh you will not be disappointed no yeah they're just amazing creatures you know if you really want like just evolution history
elusive, just amazing, amazing hoofstock. I mean, it's a hoofstock. I can't even believe that. I know. I love it. I know. Yeah. I'm just looking at their four hooves, toe hooves, whatever you want to call them on the front end. And they're just so cute. they are they are we hope you enjoy this on world taper day
And, you know, thank you for support, you know, share. Thank you for sharing this podcast with your friends and family. It's amazing. Thank you so much. And stay tuned for next week. We'll be back with something. Something amazing. Oh, I think you hinted at it. Did you hint at it? Well, yeah. We'll see if you're up for the challenge. Awesome. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We'll keep it a surprise for next week. It's going to be a cool creature.
Awesome. Thank you, everyone. We appreciate your time and for learning, loving, and conserving all creatures. Listen. Learn. Share.