Baird's Tapir, Costa RicaKaren and I head to Costa Rica in the morning, so this will be the last post for a week or so. Last time I was in Costa Rica, down on the Osa Peninsula, I had great encounters with Baird’s tapirs, the largest land animals in Central America, weighing between 500 and 800 pounds and standing about 4 feet tall. But despite their bulky size, tapirs are excellent swimmers and divers. They use water to cool off, escape predators, and they feed on aquatic plants. Nikon D700 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (at 86mm) ISO 3200, f/2.8 at 1/60th of a second.