Orangutan

Baby Orangutan

The name Orang-utan comes from the Malay/Indonesian for “man of the forest”. Of the apes, the orangutan is the only ape from Asia. They currently live only on two islands, in Malaysian Borneo and Sumatra, Indonesia. There are two species that are very closely related, Pongo pygmaeus abelii, the Sumatran and Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus, the Bornean. Recently in 2009, a large number of previously unobserved red apes were found deep in jungle of Sumatra.

The Bornean males have enormous cheeks, a big throat sac and a big square face. Sumatran orangutans are more of a bright orange color and the males have light-colored “fu manchu” type beard or mustache. Females are about half the size of the males and don’t have such massive heads. Their color changes with age with some becoming even a dark chocolate or blackish color in old age.

Orangutan showing hands

Orangutans are the apes that likes trees best. They may stay up in the trees all the time, even drinking water from where it has collected in the hollows of trees. They have very strong hands and long arms (that can span up to 8 feet) so they are well suited for hanging around in trees. They are an endangered species as their habitat has been rapidly destroyed by palm oil production, logging and other ventures.

Oragutans are intelligent and gentle. They also seem to express emotion more like humans than any other animal. They eat mostly plant matter and like fruit the best. They are known to be fairly solitary as adults. This is probably because it may be difficult to find enough food if they stick together.

Wikipedia excerpt for "Orangutan":

The orangutans are a species of great apes. Known for their intelligence, they live in trees and they are the largest living arboreal animal. They have longer arms than other great apes, and their hair is reddish-brown, instead of the brown or black hair typical of other great apes. Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, they are currently found only in rainforests on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, though fossils have been found in Java, the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Vietnam and China. They are the only surviving species in the genus Pongo and the subfamily Ponginae (which also includes the extinct genera Gigantopithecus and Sivapithecus).

See full Wikipedia Orangutan article