Tapirus californicus, the California tapir, is a genus of tapir that inhabited North America during the Pleistocene. It became extinct about 13,000 years ago.
Like other perissodactyls, tapirs originated in North America and lived on the North American continent for most of the Cenozoic Era. Fossils of ancient tapirs in North America can be dated back to 50 million-year-old Eocene rocks on Ellesmere Island, Canada, which was then a temperate climate. By 13 million years ago, tapirs very much like extant tapirs existed in Southern California.
During the Pleistocene epoch, there were at least four species of tapir on the North American continent. Along with Tapirus californicus, Tapirus merriami was found in California and Arizona, Tapirus veroensis was found in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Missouri, and Tennessee, and Tapirus copei was found from Pennsylvania to Florida. By the end of the Pleistocene around 12,000 years ago, all tapirs disappeared from North America, which coincided with the extinctions of many other groups of megafauna in the Americas.
In the Series 3 episode "Saving the Sabre Tooth," a family of California Tapirs were brought to the park from Late Pleistocene North America, 30,000 years ago. They reside in the Ape-Man Jungle Enclosure.
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