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Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. They are now found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Classified in the genus Pongo, orangutans were originally considered to be one species.
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The name orangutan means "man of the forest" in the Malay language. In the lowland forests in which they reside, orangutans live solitary existences. They feast on wild fruits like lychees, mangosteens, and figs, and slurp water from holes in trees.
Jun 25, 2024 · Orangutan, any of three species of Asian great apes found in rainforests on the Southeast Asian islands of Sumatra and Borneo. They are renowned for their cognitive abilities, which are comparable to those of the gorilla and the chimpanzee.
The Malay word orangutan means “person of the forest.”. These long-haired, orangish primates, found only in Sumatra and Borneo, are highly intelligent and are close relatives of humans.
1. There are 3 species of orangutan. The Bornean, the Sumatran and the recently confirmed new species (as of 2017), the Tapanuli. These great apes are only found in the wild on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. All three orangutan species are critically endangered.
Orang-utans. Orang-utans are the world's largest tree-climbing mammals. But their forest habitat in Indonesia and Malaysia is rapidly disappearing, putting the future of Asia's only great ape in peril. © naturepl.com/Anup Shah / WWF.
Physical Description. Orangutans have long, sparse orange or reddish hair unequally distributed over their bodies. They have large jaws and flattened noses in concave faces. Orangutans are the largest arboreal mammals and are very well adapted to life in the trees, with arms much longer than their legs.
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Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests. The Sumatran orangutan is almost exclusively arboreal, living among the trees of tropical rainforests. Females virtually never travel on the ground and adult males do so rarely. Sumatran orangutans are reported to have closer social ties than their Bornean cousins.
With no more than 800 individuals in existence, the Tapanuli orangutan is the most endangered of all great apes. Habitat Orangutans are found only in the lowland forests of Borneo and Sumatra in Southeast Asia.
What an extraordinary creature the orangutan is. But, this ‘person of the forest’ (that’s what orangutan means in Malay) is now at serious risk. A century ago, orangutans lived in forests all across south-east Asia – from southern China to the Indonesian island of Java.
