The lowland tapir lives in South American forests and wetlands, preferring sites near water where it swims well.
Adults are brownish with a short mane along the head and neck. Young have white horizontal stripes.
Lowland tapirs consume soil as well as plants. Within Amazonian forests, animals repeatedly visit particular places to eat earth. Tapirs are among these visitors, alongside agoutis, pacas and peccaries.
Research published in 2024 investigated this behaviour in the Sucusari River basin of northeastern Peru. Animal visits were recorded from August 2018 to June 2019, and fifty-two mineral licks with sufficient monitoring effort were included in the analysis. Lowland tapirs visited twenty-nine of these sites. Visit frequencies differed between licks, and other animal species showed their own patterns of use.
Models relating visits to soil composition predicted higher tapir visitation frequencies at sites with more sodium. The authors suggested that soil consumption may supplement minerals missing from food. Mineral licks occur in scattered places within the forest, and consuming earth forms part of a life otherwise sustained by fruit and leaves.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Vehicle collisions are a conservation concern in Brazil. A January 2019 report by INCAB–IPÊ examined existing underpasses on highway MS-040 in Mato Grosso do Sul from September 2017 to May 2018. It documented 533 confirmed complete passages by lowland tapirs, while also observing tapirs crossing the road surface. The report recommended adding fencing to guide animals toward the underpasses and prevent access to the pavement.