Exciting mammal sighting

Today while I was running in the late afternoon, I saw a large animal coming down the road toward me. At first I thought it was a big dog. Then I thought it was a bear. Then I realized it was neither, and must be one of the animals that occur only in the tropics such as a paca, tapir, or capybara. It was large, rotund, and black. Upon my return to the lab I consulted mammal reference books, and I narrowed it down to a tapir or a capybara. Unfortunately it happened so quickly and early into my run that I cannot remember what the nose looked like...the most distinguishing feature between a tapir and capybara. Everyone at the lab thinks it was a capybara (which are cuter, by the way) because they have never seen a tapir here. However, as more and more surrounding forest is cut to make way for shipping containers at the Caribbean terminus of the Panama canal, animals that have never been spotted at Punta Galeta are being seen. One person saw a large cat (panther, perhaps?) and a fellow runner saw an animal with a tapir-like nose. I will have to spot the dark stranger another time to come to a satisfying conclusion.