Brevet's Black Tapir

This article explores the fascinating history of the black tapir, known as Tapirus indicus sp. brevetianus, which astonished zoologists in the 1920s. The discovery of a solidly black individual from Sumatra in Rotterdam shed new light on the classification of Malayan tapirs. Despite the lack of subsequent discoveries of this variety, their existence remains a mystery, and the only traces of them are remains in the Leiden Museum of Natural History. The article explores the possibilities for the future discovery of this mysterious form of tapir.

A now almost forgotten variety of Malayan tapir, called brevetianus , was once exhibited in large zoos. The largest of the four living tapir species and the only Old World tapir, the Malayan tapir, Tapirus indicus , has a distinctive white "saddle" covering much of its body and the upper hindquarters. Its three New World relatives are solid black.

It is no wonder that zoologists were moved and surprised when they saw that one of the adult Malayan tapirs, sent to the Rotterdam Zoo from Sumatra in the spring of 1924, did not have a white "saddle".

According to Dr. K. Kuiper of the Rotterdam Zoo, no one had ever seen a solid black Malayan tapir. Even Captain K. Brevet of the Royal Netherlands Indian Army, who provided the tapirs, had never heard of their existence. Yet the Rotterdam specimen (a male) proved that at least one such tapir existed. After a few months, Brevet sent two young, typical Malayan tapirs to the zoo. One of them grew into an animal with solid black fur.Although these were undoubtedly Malayan tapirs, what was their place in the taxonomy of the species? Both specimens were captured in the Babat district in the Palembang lowlands, where black-and-white tapirs live. Therefore, it was impossible to conclude that black tapirs were a morphologically distinct subspecies occurring in a different geographic area. The mysterious creatures originated in the same region; no reports of black tapirs had reached other parts of the country. Kuiper also concluded that it was unlikely that the coloration of the specimens could be attributed to a simple genetic mutation. This was not a black morph, which could appear at any time in a given group of light-bodied specimens (like, for example, black panthers in a group of spotted leopards).

Kuiper therefore treated black tapirs as representatives of a newly emerging variety, one that did not replace the black-and-white variety in a specific area (and was therefore not a subspecies), but rather existed within a specific geographic region. In 1926, he officially gave the variety included in the taxonomy the Latin name Tapirus indicus sp. brevetianus, in honor of its discoverer. However, it now appears that the solid-black tapirs were color mutants, as no new specimens of the brevetianus variety have been found or described . Two Rotterdam tapirs died before they could reproduce with black-and-white tapirs. This meant that science lost the opportunity to investigate the genetic causes of their solid-black coloration. Currently, the only evidence of these animals' existence is their remains preserved in the Leiden Museum of Natural History. There is, however, the intriguing possibility that such specimens will appear in the future, and the paradox of the brevetianus variety of Old World black tapirs will once again intrigue researchers.