Tapirs are short-legged, tubby, short-necked, short-tailed animals with a large head, radar-dish ears, and a flexible proboscis for a nose. Their feet end in splayed, hooved toes. Tapir skin is covered by short fur.
Tapirs are herbivores, who feed with their proboscis by plucking leaves, buds, shoots, grass, aquatic plants, and fruit either from the branch or fallen to the ground. They forage over paths in the jungle they make by pushing aside and trampling the intervening vegetation. They are crepuscular, and communicate with squeaks and whistles. These animals enjoy swimming, wading, and wallowing, and are good swimmers.
A tapir's vision is poor, being able to mainly pick out motion rather than details. However, they have an excellent sense of smell and good hearing. Their sense of touch is mostly concentrated around their proboscis and lips, so they use their mouth where we would use our hands.
Tapirs are typically timid animals who run from trouble. When forced to fight, they usually attack by biting. They are quite large, so they can also slam and knock over a human. Unprovoked attacks on humans are rare, but not unheard of. The opposite, however, is far from true - tapirs taste delicious and are regularly hunted throught their range.
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The Captive checkbox is for animals that have been kept in captivity all their lives, without the ability to hone their skills like their wild relatives. It would be appropriate for a zoo animal. Marking the T? checkbox will give you the stats in template form with all costs listed, otherwise you get a stat sheet as for a character. Marking the HR? checkbox will print the information using all my house rules. Otherwise, the stats will be as compatable with plain vanilla GURPS as possible (although several custom advantages and disadvantages will be present, see my Traits page). |