Tapirus bairdii
Drawn from open occurrence records inside Corcovado, aggregated onto a 25 km grid.
Occurrence records measure where people looked and found something, which is not the same as where the animal is. This is a relative likelihood, not a probability.
Records exist for January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December. A quiet month can mean the animal was absent, or that nobody was looking.
Baird's tapir is Central America's biggest land mammal and one of its best-kept secrets: up to 300 kilograms of shy, prehensile-nosed herbivore that looks like evolution split the difference between a horse and an anteater and then apologized to neither. Fewer than 6,000 are thought to survive, and Costa Rica's protected forests, Corcovado above all, are among the most reliable places on Earth to meet one. Tapirs are the forest's gardeners: they swallow fruit whole and deposit the seeds kilometers away, planting tomorrow's canopy as they walk. They swim well, nap in wallows, and follow habitual trails so faithfully that a muddy tapir highway is often your first evidence one lives nearby.
Mostly solitary and mostly nocturnal, commuting between feeding areas, water and wallows on worn trails marked with dung stations.
Dawn and dusk near water in Corcovado, or a quiet wait at a wallow. High ISO, no flash, and let it come to you; a tapir that has not noticed you is a tapir that stays.
Never use flash or approach a tapir with a calf; startled tapirs bolt blind through anything, including you.