Extinct California Tapir (Tapirus californicus) Fact Sheet: Diet & Feeding

Clues to fossil mammals' diets come from teeth, skull shape and the positions and strength of major jaw muscles, from fossilized dung and guts, from oxygen isotopes in bone and teeth, and from diets of similar modern animals.

• Assumed to be like living tapirs: leaves, aquatic plants, fruit and seeds, including palm and avocado.
• Developing a flexible proboscis may have aided tapirs in feeding in marginal habitats as their preferred lush habitats became more scarce over the millions of years of their evolution. (Colbert and Schoch 1998)

Downer (2001)
Colbert and Schoch (1998)