Tapirus polkensis, the pygmy tapir, was a small prehistoric tapir

Tapir

A Tapir is a large browsing mammal, similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile snout. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South America, Central America, and Southeast Asia. There are four species of Tapirs: the Brazilian Tapir, the Malayan Tapir, Baird's Tapir and the Mountain...

 that lived in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 during the Late Miocene

Late Miocene

The Late Miocene is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch....

 and early Pliocene. It is thought that Tapirus polkensis lived in swamps, where it would have been preyed on by ancestors of modern American crocodiles. It is smaller than any extant tapir, with an estimated mass of around 125 kilograms (275.6 lb). It was similar to a contemporary species of prehistoric horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

 known as Parahippus

Parahippus

Parahippus is an extinct relative of the modern horse, very similar to Miohippus, but slightly larger, at around tall, at the withers....

that also inhabited North American Miocene wetlands.