Sketchbook : Tapirs

Tapirs are the platypuses of the ungulate family - exotic, comical mash-ups of features from elsewhere in the animal kingdom: the body of a pig, the toes of a hippo, the trunk of a dwarf elephant, and a pair of mousy ears... it goes without saying that, as with the platypus, an amalgam like this makes tapirs both extremely weird, and ridiculously cute. With horses and rhinos as close relatives, they are classified as odd-toes, but they've actually got 4 toes on their front feet and only 3 in the back! As an added bonus, tapirs come in four distinct varieties, one of which (the Brazilian) sports a mohawk, another (the Malayan) is colored in a graphic bicolor pattern. The Franklin Park Zoo has a few Baird's tapirs (a grayish brown species from Latin America) and last December 5th, female, Abby, and male, Milton, became proud parents when baby Tupelo was born. *And if adult tapirs weren't adorable enough, baby tapirs are freckled head to toe with a pattern of white stripes and spots that fade as the animal matures... can you stand it?!