Tapir Garden


When walking in mountain tapir habitat you feel like walking in a perfect garden full of colors textures and smells. Look at this picture taken at Purace National Park. At right you can see some “frailejón” (Espeletia sp.) plants, a group of species specially adapted to the cold Andean paramos of Venezuela, Colombia and some areas in Ecuador. Their leaves have a hairy texture that help the plant to protect itself from UV radiation and from the harsh cold. The plant retains the dead leaves in its trunk, an adaptation related with how the plant deals with the cold temperatures too. Frailejons growth very slowly, about just 1 cm per year. Some other species that we can see in this picture are the bromeliads which produce beautiful flowers like the red one we can see. For this reason some bromeliads have economic importance as ornamental plants. Finally at the right we can see some tree ferns that can growth several meters and are specially adapted to cold temperatures too.

1 comentario:

  1. That's a beautiful habitat area! Which of these plants do the tapirs eat? I know they eat about 100+ types of plant. Do they eat all of the ones you mentioned? Or do you know any in this area that they will not eat?

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