1" Tapir Tapirus Veroensis Fossil Tooth Pleistocene Age Withlacoochee River FL Display
Location: Withlacoochee River, Florida, United States
Weight: 0.4 Ounces
Dimensions: 1 Inch Long, 0.9 Inches Wide, 0.6 Inches Thick
Comes with a Free Display.
The Item pictured is the one you will receive.
Pleistocene Age 1 - 1.7 Million Years old.
Tapirus veroensis, commonly called the Vero tapir, was an extinct species of tapir that lived in North America during the Pleistocene epoch, a time marked by repeated glacial cycles and the rise of diverse megafauna. This species likely inhabited forests, wetlands, and river valleys, relying on dense vegetation for both food and cover. Like modern tapirs, T. veroensis probably fed on a variety of plant material, including leaves, fruits, and shoots, using its flexible snout to grasp foliage. Fossil evidence suggests that this species was well adapted to the cooler and more variable climates of the Ice Age, playing an important role in shaping the ecosystems it inhabited.
Tapirus veroensis fossils have been recovered from multiple southeastern United States localities, with the Withlacoochee River drainage in Florida representing a particularly productive paleontological zone. The Pleistocene landscape of Florida bore little resemblance to its modern configuration, shaped by substantially reduced sea levels that exposed continental shelf regions and fundamentally restructured drainage patterns. The Withlacoochee River functioned as a critical component of Ice Age Florida's complex ecosystem, sustaining a rich assemblage of megafauna alongside the Vero tapir. This tooth specimen documents the presence of these extinct proboscideans within a vanished subtropical environment.
The Vero tapir was a large, herbivorous mammal, likely similar in appearance and habits to modern tapirs, possessing a short, prehensile snout. Its diet would have consisted of soft vegetation, leaves, and fruits, which were abundant in the subtropical and temperate environments of Ice Age Florida. The presence of Tapirus veroensis in the Withlacoochee River area indicates that this region provided suitable habitat, including access to water and ample forage, for these ancient proboscideans during the Pleistocene. The extinction of the Vero tapir, along with many other North American megafauna, is generally attributed to a combination of climate change at the end of the Ice Age and human hunting pressure.
