Tapirs are herbivorous mammals included in the order Perissodactyla (odd-toed ungulates), together with rhinoceroses and horses. However, they are classified in a family of their own (tapirids), due to their distinctive features. These include a short but very movable proboscis (much shorter than an elephant’s trunk), which they use to browse on leaves. Extant tapirs include four species of the genus Tapirus, distributed in Central and South America, as well as southeastern Asia. However, this genus was recorded in Europe during the Miocene, even though its fossil remains are generally scarce and fragmentary, particularly in the Iberian Peninsula.

In a paper recently published in the Swiss Journal of Palaeontology, a team led by researchers from the Università di Pisa (Italy) and the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP) describes unpublished tapirid remains from various localities (Creu de Conill 20, Can Llobateres 1, and Can Gambús-I5) of the Vallès Sector of the Vallès-Penedès Basin. These localities are dated to the Vallesian, ranging in age from 11 to 9 Ma (million years ago). The fossils are attributed to Tapirus priscus and include a partial cranium from the site of Can Gambús, which provides new insights about the milky teeth of this species. This cranium, quite complete for tapirid standards, was recently recovered thanks to paleontological surveillance of construction works performed by the ICP in the municipality of Sabadell. This highlights once more the need to perform rescue excavations whenever construction works may affect the exceptionally rich fossiliferous deposits of the Vallès-Penedès Basin.

Specimen of the Amazonian tapir or Brazilian tapir (Tapirus terrestris) extant species. Image: Charles J. Sharp, distributed under CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Living tapirs inhabit dense and humid forests and feed on leaves and fruits. Similar habits have been inferred for T. priscus. Therefore, the recently published article attests to the persistence of similarly moist forested environments in NE Iberian Peninsula throughout the Vallesian, despite an ongoing trend toward a cooler and more seasonal climate and coinciding with the latest local records of apes. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that both T. priscus and other tapirid species were present until later in central and eastern Europe, indicating that suitable environments persisted longer there than in the Iberian Peninsula. Yet they also went eventually extinct, leaving a gap in the European fossil tapirid record until the dispersal of Tapirus arvernensis from Asia around 5 Ma.

Main image:Juvenile cranium of Tapirus priscus (IPS133767) from Can Gambús-I5, in occlusal (left) and lateral (right) views. Reproduced from Pandolfi et al. (2025: fig. 4a-c)

Article originally published at UAB Divulga. Author of the text: David M. Alba.

Original research article:

Pandolfi, L., Arranz, S. G., Almécija, S., Galindo, J., Luján, À. H., Pina, M., Urciuoli, A., Casanovas-Vilar, I., & Alba, D. M. (2025). Late Miocene Tapiridae from Vallès-Penedès Basin (NE Iberian Peninsula): Taxonomic and paleoenvironmental Implications. Swiss Journal of Palaeontology, 144, 3. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13358-024-00342-5