This is what I once wrote for a friend...He asked: "Why the tapir?"

I answered: "Well, as you said: It's shy, large and strong! That's me! No, seriously: Torsten Fredrich and me once visited the Hamburg Zoo (Ever heard of Hagenbeck's Tierpark?) some 5 or 6 years ago.

Once we came to the tapirs (Tapire? Tapirae?) we were amused by the way they looked (sort of ancient and out of date...like boomerangs look to most people...). The funniest was the habit of the male to "mark his territory" in a rather unusual way: He didn't only - well - er - "urinate" but did this horizontally and backwards! In fact this shocked most visitors, because they stood BEHIND him and haven't supposed this to be of any danger...definatly no danger of that kind! We had much fun waiting for other visitors to fall in the tapir trap...Great!

With this visit in mind I thought of a new brand name which shouldn't just use an australian animal again! Not "Kangaroo", "Wombat", "Kookaburra" or any other marsupial or down under freak...There had to be something that represented boomeranging better - at least in my view... The TAPIRIDAE were close to perfect for this, because like boomerangs they had been around for ages without creating too much interest in the mind of "the people". This was to be changed, because tapirs, like boomerangs, are interesting, fun, rare and something special in almost any way!

Just to underline the lack of knowledge most people have I gave the tapir 2 extra legs. This made it look not only bigger and more solid, but created a kind of "M. C. Escher" effect! You look at it and maybe even notice that something is wrong, but you just can't tell what it is... (check for yourself) The tapir should make you wonder "WHY?". Why the tapir? Why the boomerang? Why does it come back? Does it come back? Can I do it?"