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Denver Zoo’s nursery gets another addition: Meet endangered Malayan tapir calf Umi

Umi, whose name means life in Malayan, will stay behind the scenes until she’s able to swim

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Denver Zoo’s endangered Malayan tapir (TAY-purr) pair Rinny and Benny welcomed their third calf — and first girl — early Saturday.

Umi, whose name means life in Malayan, will stay behind the scenes at the zoo’s Toyota Elephant Passage habitat until she’s able to swim and both mom and baby are comfortable enough to venture outdoors, said Sean Anderson-Vie, zoo public relations manager.

The baby tapir is the newest addition to the zoo, which also has celebrated the recent high-profile births of , and .

Umi’s mom Rinny was born at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo in 2007 and came to Denver Zoo in 2010. Dad Benny was born at the City of Belfast Zoo in Ireland in 2006 and arrived in Denver in 2007.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums Species Survival Plan, which ensures healthy populations and genetic diversity among zoo animals, recommended the pair’s arranged marriage.

So far it’s been very successful. Umi’s older brothers, Dumadi, born in 2012, and Baku, born in 2014, have both moved on to new zoo homes of their own. Dumadi relocated to Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo in June 2013, while Baku moved to the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, Wash., in August 2015.

at Omaha’s zoo. They welcomed their first calf, a girl named Tembakai, in August.

— especially with children — at the Point Defiance Zoo, said Kris Sherman, zoo communications associate manager. The zoo brought in Yuna, a prospective mate for Baku, a few months ago, but she has not yet reached sexual maturity.

Although tapirs are most closely related to horses and rhinos, they have builds similar to pigs, but are significantly larger. As adults, Malaysian tapirs can stand more than 3-feet tall and can stretch from between 6- to 8-feet long. They weigh between 700 and 900 pounds and are excellent swimmers who use their flexible noses as snorkels and spend much of their time in water.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies Malayan tapirs, with a wild population of less than 2,000, as endangered due habitat loss and hunting. Malayan tapirs, the only tapir native to Asia, were once found throughout Southeast Asia, but now inhabit only the rain forests of the Indochinese peninsula and Sumatra.

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