The
orangutans are two
endangered speciesAn endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters. Also it could mean that due to deforestation there may be a lack of food and/or water...
of
great apesThe Hominidae The Hominidae The Hominidae (anglicized Hominids, also known as great apes
["Great ape" is a common name rather than a taxonomic label and there are differences in usage...]
. Known for their intelligence, they live in trees and are the largest living arboreal animal. They have longer arms than other great apes, and their hair is typically reddish-brown, instead of the brown or black hair typical of other great apes. Native to
IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with an...
and
MalaysiaMalaysia is a country in Southeast Asia that consists of thirteen states and three Federal Territories, with a total landmass of . The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government. The population stands at over 28 million inhabitants...
, they are currently found only in
rainforestRainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions setting minimum normal annual rainfall between 1750–2000 mm . The monsoon trough, alternately known as the intertropical convergence zone, plays a significant role in creating Earth's tropical rain forests.From 40 to 75%...
s on the islands of
BorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located at the centre of Maritime Southeast Asia. Administratively, this island is divided among Indonesia , Malaysia and Brunei . Indonesians refer to the island as Kalimantan...
and
SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world .-Etymology:Sumatra was known in ancient times by the Sanskrit...
, though
fossilFossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous rock formations and sedimentary layers is known as the fossil record...
s have been found in
JavaJava is an island of Indonesia and the site of its capital city, Jakarta. Once the centre of powerful Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms, Islamic sultanates, and the core of the colonial Dutch East Indies, Java now plays a dominant role in the economic and political life of Indonesia...
, the Thai-Malay Peninsula,
VietnamVietnam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam , is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east...
and
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
. There are only two surviving species in the genus
Pongo: the Bornean
Pongo pygmaeus and the
critically endangeredOrganisms with a conservation status of critically endangered have an extremely high risk of becoming extinct in the wild or completely extinct in the immediate future.-IUCN Category:...
SumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world .-Etymology:Sumatra was known in ancient times by the Sanskrit...
n
Pongo abelii. The subfamily
PonginaePonginae is a subfamily in the hominidae family. It contains a number of genera, all but one extinct:*Pongo *†Gigantopithecus*†Sivapithecus*†Lufengpithecus*†Ankarapithecus*†Ouranopithecus...
includes the extinct genera
GigantopithecusGigantopithecus is an extinct genus of ape that existed from roughly one million years to as recently as three-hundred thousand years ago, in what is now China, India, and Vietnam, placing Gigantopithecus in the same time frame and geographical location as several hominin species...
and
SivapithecusSivapithecus is a genus of extinct primates. Fossil remains of animals now assigned to this genus, dated from 12.5 million to 8.5 million years old in the Miocene, have been found since the 19th century in the Siwalik Hills in what is now India and Pakistan...
.
Ecology and appearance
An orangutan's standing height averages from and weighs between . Males can weigh up to or more. Orangutan hands are similar to humans hands; they have four long fingers and an opposable thumb. Their feet have four long toes and an opposable big toe. Orangutans can grasp things with both their hands and their feet. The largest males have an arm span of about .
Orangutans have a large, bulky body, a thick neck, very long, strong arms, short, bowed legs, and no tail. They are mostly covered with long reddish-brown hair, although this differs between the species: Sumatran Orangutans have a more sparse and lighter coloured coat.
The orangutan has a large head with a prominent mouth area. Adult males have large cheek flaps (which get larger as the ape ages) that show their dominance to other males and their readiness to mate to other females. The age of maturity for females is approximately 12 years. Orangutans may live for about 50 years in the wild. However, thousands of orangutans don't reach adulthood due to human disruption. Orangutans are killed for food while others are killed because of disruption in people's property. Mother orangutans are killed so their infants can be sold as pets. Many of the infants die without the help of their mother.
Orangutans are the most arboreal of the great apes, spending nearly all of their time in the trees. Every night they fashion sleeping nests from branches and foliage. They are more solitary than other apes; males and females generally come together only to mate. Mothers stay with their babies for six or seven years. There is significant
sexual dimorphismSexual dimorphism is the systematic difference in form between individuals of different sex in the same species. Examples include colour , size, and the presence or absence of parts of the body used in courtship displays or fights, such as ornamental feathers, horns, antlers or tusks.-Examples:In...
: females can grow to around 2 in or 127 cm and weigh around while flanged adult males can reach 5 ft 9 in or 175 cm in height and weigh over .
The arms of orangutans are twice as long as their legs. Much of the arm's length has to do with the length of the
radiusThe radius is the bone of the forearm that extends from the lateral side of the elbow to the thumb side of the wrist. The radius is situated on the lateral side of the ulna, which exceeds it in length and size. It is a long bone, prism-shaped and slightly curved longitudinally...
and the
ulnaThe ulna is a long bone, prismatic in form. In anatomical position the ulna is placed at the medial side of the forearm closest to the body, parallel with the radius on both arms.-Articulations:The ulna articulates with:...
rather than the
humerusThe humerus is a long bone in the arm or forelimb that runs from the shoulder to the elbow....
. Their fingers and toes are curved, allowing them to better grip onto branches. Orangutans have less restriction in the movements of their legs than humans and other primates, due to the lack of a hip joint ligament which keeps the
femurThe femur, or thigh bone, is the most proximal bone of the leg in vertebrates capable of walking or jumping, such as most land mammals, birds, many reptiles such as lizards, and amphibians such as frogs...
held into the pelvis. Unlike gorillas and chimpanzees, orangutans are not true knuckle-walkers, and are instead fist-walkers.
Diet
FruitThe term fruit has different meanings dependent on context, and the term is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants disseminate seeds, and the presence of seeds indicates that a structure is most likely a fruit, though not all seeds come from...
makes up 65–90 percent of the orangutan diet. Fruits with sugary or fatty pulp are favored.
FicusFicus is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes, and hemiepiphyte in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone. The so-called Common Fig Ficus ...
fruits are commonly eaten, because they are easy to harvest and digest. Lowland Dipterocarp forests are preferred by orangutans because of their plentiful fruit; the same forests provide excellent timber for the logging industry and good soil conditions for palm oil plantations. Bornean orangutans consume at least 317 different food items that include: young leaves, shoots, bark, insects, honey and bird eggs.
Orangutans are opportunistic foragers, and their diets vary markedly from month to month. Bark is consumed as a last resort in times of food scarcity; fruits are always preferred.
Orangutans are thought to be the sole fruit disperser for some plant species including the climber species
Strychnos ignatii which contains the toxic
alkaloidAlkaloids are naturally occurring chemical compounds containing basic nitrogen atoms. The name derives from the word alkaline and was used to describe any nitrogen-containing base. Alkaloids are produced by a large variety of organisms, including bacteria, fungi, plants, and animals and are part of...
strychnineStrychnine is a very toxic , colorless crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine causes muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia or sheer exhaustion. The most common source is from the seeds of the...
. It does not appear to have any effect on orangutans except for excessive
salivaSaliva is the watery and usually frothy substance produced in the mouths of humans and most other animals. Saliva is produced in and secreted from the salivary glands...
production.
GeophagyGeophagy is the practice of eating earthy or soil-like substances such as clay, and chalk, in order to obtain essential nutrients such as sulfur and phosphorus from the soil. This practice is widespread among animals in the wild, as well as in human societies...
, the practice of eating soil or rock, has been observed in orangutans. There are three main reasons for this dietary behavior; for the addition of minerals nutrients to their diet; for the ingestion of clay minerals that can absorb toxic substances; or to treat a disorder such as diarrhea.
Orangutans use plants of the genus
CommelinaCommelina is a genus of approximately 170 species commonly called dayflowers due to the short lives of their flowers. They are less often known as widow's tears. It is by far the largest genus of its family, Commelinaceae...
as an anti-inflammatory balm.
Behavior and language
Like the other great apes, orangutans are remarkably intelligent. Although tool use among
chimpanzeeChimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
s was documented by
Jane GoodallDame Jane Goodall, DBE is an English UN Messenger of Peace, primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist...
in the 1960s, it was not until the mid-1990s that one population of orangutans was found to use feeding tools regularly. A 2003 paper in the journal
Science described the evidence for distinct orangutan cultures.
According to research psychologist Robert Deaner and his colleagues, orangutans are the world's most intelligent animal other than humans, with higher learning and problem solving ability than chimpanzees, which were previously considered to have greater abilities. A study of orangutans by Carel van Schaik, a Dutch primatologist at
Duke UniversityDuke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892...
, found them capable of tasks well beyond chimpanzees’ abilities — such as using leaves to make rain hats and leakproof roofs over their sleeping nests. He also found that, in some food-rich areas, the creatures had developed a complex culture in which adults would teach youngsters how to make tools and find food.
A two year study of orangutan symbolic capability was conducted from 1973-1975 by Gary L. Shapiro with Aazk, a juvenile female orangutan at the Fresno City Zoo (now Chaffee Zoo) in Fresno, California. The study employed the techniques of
David PremackDavid Premack is currently emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.He is co-author, with Ann James Premack, of*The Mind of an Ape...
who used plastic tokens to teach the chimpanzee,
SarahSarah is an enculturated research chimpanzee whose cognitive skills are documented in The Mind of an Ape, by David Premack and Ann James Premack . Sarah was one of nine chimpanzees in David Premack's psychology laboratory in Pennsylvania. Sarah was born in Africa in 1962. She first worked in...
, linguistic skills. Shapiro continued to examine the linguistic and learning abilities of ex-captive orangutans in Tanjung Puting National Park, in Indonesian Borneo, between 1978 and 1980. During that time, Shapiro instructed ex-captive orangutans in the acquisition and use of signs following the techniques of R. Allen and Beatrix Gardner who taught the chimpanzee,
WashoeWashoe was a chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to use some of the signs of a human language, that of American Sign Language. She also passed on some of her knowledge to her adopted son, Loulis....
, in the late-1960s. In the only signing study ever conducted in a great ape's natural environment, Shapiro home-reared Princess, a juvenile female who learned nearly 40 signs (according to the criteria of sign acquisition used by Francine Patterson with
KokoKoko is a lowland gorilla who, according to Francine 'Penny' Patterson, is able to understand more than 1,000 signs based on American Sign Language, and understand approximately 2,000 words of spoken English...
, the gorilla) and trained Rinnie, a free-ranging adult female orangutan who learned nearly 30 signs over a two year period. For his dissertation
study, Shapiro examined the factors influencing sign learning by four juvenile orangutans over a 15-month period.
The first orangutan language study program, directed by Dr.
Francine NeagoDr. Francine Neago is a primatologist and conservationist specializing in orangutans. In addition to her internationally televised films about orangutans she has lectured worldwide and published several scientific papers in the Journal of Primatology .At UCLA she developed a computer system in...
, was listed by
Encyclopedia Britannica in 1988. The Orangutan language project at the
Smithsonian National ZooThe Smithsonian National Zoological Park, commonly known as the National Zoo, is a zoo located in Washington, D.C. It is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums...
in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790...
, uses a computer system originally developed at
UCLAThe University of California, Los Angeles is a research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in the United States. It was founded in 1919 and is the second-oldest general-purpose campus in the University of California system...
by Neago in conjunction with IBM.
Zoo Atlanta has a touch screen computer where their two Sumatran Orangutans play games. Scientists hope that the data they collect from this will help researchers learn about socializing patterns, such as whether they mimic others or learn behavior from trial and error, and hope the data can point to new conservation strategies.
A 2008 study of two orangutans at the Leipzig Zoo showed that orangutans are the first non-human species documented to use 'calculated reciprocity' which involves weighing the costs and benefits of gift exchanges and keeping track of these over time.
Although orangutans are generally passive, aggression toward other orangutans is very common; they are solitary animals and can be fiercely territorial. Immature males will try to mate with any female, and may succeed in forcibly copulating with her if she is also immature and not strong enough to fend him off. Mature females easily fend off their immature suitors, preferring to mate with a mature male.
Orangutans do not swim. At least one population at a conservation refuge on Kaja island in Borneo have been photographed wading in deep water.
Orangutans, along with
ChimpanzeeChimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
s, gorillas, and other apes, have even shown laughter-like vocalizations in response to physical contact, such as wrestling, play chasing, or tickling.
Species
- Genus Pongo
- Bornean Orangutan
The Bornean Orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus, is a species of orangutan native to the island of Borneo. Together with the slightly smaller Sumatran Orangutan, it belongs to the only genus of great apes native to Asia....
(Pongo pygmaeus)
- Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus - northwest populations
- Pongo pygmaeus morio - east populations
- Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii - southwest populations
- Sumatran Orangutan
The Sumatran Orangutan is the rarer of the two species of orangutans. Living on and endemic to Sumatra island of Indonesia, it is smaller than the Bornean Orangutan. The Sumatran Orangutan grows to about tall and in males...
(Pongo abelii)
The populations on the two islands were classified as
subspeciesSubspecies in biological classification, is 1) a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, or 2) a taxonomic unit, a taxon in that rank...
until recently, when they were elevated to full specific level, and the three distinct populations on Borneo were elevated to subspecies. The population currently listed as
P. p. wurmbii may be closer to the Sumatran Orangutan than the Bornean Orangutan. If confirmed,
abelii would be a subspecies of
P. wurmbii (Tiedeman, 1808). Regardless, the type locality of
pygmaeus has not been established beyond doubts, and may be from the population currently listed as
wurmbii (in which case
wurmbii would be a junior synonym of
pygmaeus, while one of the names currently considered a junior synonym of
pygmaeus would take precedence for the northwest Bornean
taxon|thumb|270px|[[African elephants]] form a widely-accepted taxon, the [[genus]] LoxodontaA taxon is a group of organisms, which a taxonomist adjudges to be a unit. Usually a taxon is given a name and a rank, although neither is a requirement. Defining what belongs or does not belong to such a...
). To further confuse, the name
morio, as well as various junior synonyms that have been suggested, have been considered likely to all be junior synonyms of the population listed as
pygmaeus in the above, thus leaving the east Bornean populations unnamed.
In addition, a fossil species,
P. hooijeri, is known from Vietnam, and multiple fossil subspecies have been described from several parts of southeastern Asia. It is unclear if these belong to
P. pygmaeus or
P. abeli or, in fact, represent distinct species.
Conservation status
The Sumatran species is critically endangered and the Bornean species of orangutans is
endangeredAn endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters. Also it could mean that due to deforestation there may be a lack of food and/or water...
according to the
IUCN Red ListThe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , founded in 1948, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources is the world's main authority on the conservation...
of
mammalMammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose females are characterized by the possession of mammary glands while both males and females are characterized by sweat glands, hair, three middle ear bones used in hearing, and a neocortex region in the brain.Mammals are divided into three main...
s, and both are listed on Appendix I of CITES.
The total number of Bornean orangutans is estimated to be less than 14 percent of what it was in the recent past (from around 10,000 years ago until the middle of the twentieth century) and this sharp decline has occurred mostly over the past few decades due to human activities and development. Species distribution is now highly patchy throughout Borneo: it is apparently absent or uncommon in the south-east of the island, as well as in the forests between the Rejang River in central
SarawakSarawak is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Known as Bumi Kenyalang , it is situated on the north-west of the island...
and the Padas River in western
SabahSabah is a Malaysian state located on the northern portion of the island of Borneo . It is the second largest state in Malaysia after Sarawak, which it borders on its south-west. It also shares a border with the province of East Kalimantan of Indonesia in the south...
(including the Sultanate of
BruneiBrunei , officially the State of Brunei Darussalam or the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace , is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia...
). The largest remaining population is found in the forest around the
Sabangau River, but this environment is at risk. A similar development have been observed for the Sumatran orangutans.
The most recent estimate for the Sumatran Orangutan is around 7,300 individuals in the wild while the Bornean Orangutan population is estimated at between 45,000 and 69,000. These estimates were obtained between 2000 and 2003. Since recent trends are steeply down in most places due to logging and burning, it is forecast that the current numbers are below these figures.
Orangutan
habitat destructionHabitat destruction is the process in which natural habitat is rendered functionally unable to support the species present. In this process, the organisms which previously used the site are displaced or destroyed, reducing biodiversity. Habitat destruction by human activity mainly for the purpose...
due to
loggingLogging is the process in which certain trees are cut down for forest management and timber.In forestry the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard. In common usage...
,
miningMining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually from an ore body, vein or seam. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock salt and potash...
and forest fires, as well as fragmentation by roads, has been increasing rapidly in the last decade. A major factor in that period of time has been the conversion of vast areas of tropical forest to
oil palmThe oil palms comprise two species of the Arecaceae, or palm family. They are used in commercial agriculture in the production of palm oil. The African Oil Palm Elaeis guineensis is native to west Africa, occurring between Angola and Gambia, while the American Oil Palm Elaeis oleifera is native to...
plantationA plantation is a large farm or estate, usually in a tropical or subtropical country, where crops are grown for sale in distant markets, rather than for local consumption. The term plantation is informal and not precisely defined....
s in response to international demand (the
palm oilPalm oil is an edible plant oil derived from the pulp of the fruit of the oil palm Elaeis guineensis.Palm oil is naturally reddish because it contains a high amount of beta-carotene . Palm oil is one of the few vegetable oils relatively high in saturated fats...
is used for cooking, cosmetics, mechanics, and more recently as source of
biodieselBiodiesel refers to a vegetable oil- or animal fat-based diesel fuel consisting of long-chain alkyl esters. Biodiesel is typically made by chemically reacting lipids with an alcohol....
). Some UN scientists believe that these plantations could lead to the
extinctionIn biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or group of taxa. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species...
of the species by the year 2012. Some of this activity is illegal, occurring in national parks that are officially off limits to loggers, miners and plantation development. There is also a major problem with hunting and illegal pet trade. In early 2004 about 100 individuals of Bornean origin were confiscated in
ThailandThe Kingdom of Thailand is an independent country that lies in the heart of Southeast Asia.It is bordered to the north by Laos and Burma, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and Burma...
and 50 of them were returned to
KalimantanIn English, the term Kalimantan refers to the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, while in Indonesian, the term "Kalimantan" refers to the whole island of Borneo. The Indonesian territory makes up 73 percent of the island by area, and 70 percent by population...
in 2006. Several hundred Bornean orangutan orphans who were confiscated by local authorities have been entrusted to different orphanages in both Malaysia and Indonesia. They are in the process of being rehabilitated into the wild.
Major conservation centres in Indonesia include those at Tanjung Puting National Park and Sebangau National Park in
Central KalimantanCentral Kalimantan is a province of Indonesia, one of four in Kalimantan - the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. Its provincial capital is Palangkaraya....
,
KutaiKutai is the traditional name of a historic region in East Kalimantan in Indonesia on Borneo, a Dayak people of the region with a language of the same name and their historic states. Today the name is preserved in the names of three regencys in East Kalimantan, the Kutai Kartanegara Regency, West...
in
East KalimantanEast Kalimantan is the second largest Indonesian province, located on the Kalimantan region on the east of Borneo island. The resource-rich province has two major cities, Samarinda and Balikpapan...
,
Gunung Palung National ParkGunung Palung National Park lies in the kabupaten of Kayong Utara, in the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan, north of Ketapang and east of Sukadana. The park is notable for its diversity of habitat types, ranging from mangrove and freshwater swamp forest, to lowland alluvial forest, to...
in
West KalimantanWest Kalimantan is a province of Indonesia. It is one of four Indonesian provinces in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. Its capital city Pontianak is located right on the Equator line....
, and
Bukit LawangBukit Lawang is a small tourist village at the bank of Bahorok River in North Sumatra province of Indonesia. Situated approximately 86 km north-west of Medan, Bukit Lawang is known for the largest animal sanctuary of Sumatran orangutan , and also the main access point to the Gunung Leuser National...
in the
Gunung Leuser National ParkGunung Leuser National Park is a national park covering 7,927 km² in northern Sumatra, Indonesia, straddling the border of North Sumatra and Aceh provinces. The national park, named after 3,381 m height of Mount Leuser, protects a wide range of ecosystems. An orangutan sanctuary of Bukit...
on the border of
AcehAceh is a special territory of Indonesia, located on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. Its full name is Nanggröe Aceh Darussalam. Past spellings of its name include Acheh, Atjeh and Achin.It is thought to have been in Aceh where Islam was first established in Southeast Asia...
and
North SumatraNorth Sumatra is a province of Indonesia. Its capital is Medan. It is the most populous Indonesian province outside of Java.- Geography and population :...
. In Malaysia, conservation areas include Semenggoh Wildlife Centre in
SarawakSarawak is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Known as Bumi Kenyalang , it is situated on the north-west of the island...
and Matang Wildlife Centre also in
SarawakSarawak is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Known as Bumi Kenyalang , it is situated on the north-west of the island...
, and the
Sepilok Orang Utan SanctuarySepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre is located about 25 kilometers west of Sandakan, in eastern Malaysia on the island of Borneo in the state of Sabah. It was started in 1964 for rescue and rehabilitation of orphaned baby orangutans from logging sites, plantations, and illegal hunting. The...
near
SandakanSandakan is the second-largest city in Sabah, East Malaysia, on the north-eastern coast of Borneo. It is located on the east coast of the island and it is the administrative centre of Sandakan Division and was the former capital of British North Borneo...
in
SabahSabah is a Malaysian state located on the northern portion of the island of Borneo . It is the second largest state in Malaysia after Sarawak, which it borders on its south-west. It also shares a border with the province of East Kalimantan of Indonesia in the south...
.
See also
- Ah Meng
Ah Meng was a female Sumatran Orangutan and a tourism icon of Singapore. She was smuggled from Indonesia and kept illegally as a domestic pet before being recovered by a veterinarian in 1971...
– celebrity orangutan of the Singapore Zoo
- Ken Allen
Ken Allen was the name given to a Bornean orangutan at the San Diego Zoo. He became one of the most popular animals in the history of the San Diego Zoo because of his many successful escapes from his enclosures....
– famous escape artist at the San Diego ZooThe World Famous San Diego Zoo in Balboa Park, San Diego, California is one of the largest and most progressive zoos in the world with over 4,000 animals of more than 800 species. It is also one of the few zoos in the world that houses the giant panda...
- Australian Orangutan Project
The Australian Orangutan Project is a non-profit registered Australian environmental organisation established in 1998, which raises funds to support the conservation and protection of orangutans and the preservation and rehabilitation of their forest habitats, which are primarily located in...
(AOP)
- Tonda
Tonda, 50, was the oldest orangutan in the United States.Tonda died on March 23, 2009, at ZooWorld at the Panama City Beach, Fla.-Biography:Tonda, the popular orangutan, whose name is short for Tondaleyo,died in her sleep at the age of 50...
- famous orangutan at ZooWorld
- Birutė Galdikas
Birutė Marija Filomena Galdikas, OC Ph.D. , is a primatologist, conservationist, ethologist, and author of several books relating to the endangered species orangutan. Well known in the field of modern primatology, Galdikas is recognized as a leading authority on orangutans.- Early life and...
- Chantek
Chantek is a male orangutan who has mastered the use of a number of intellectual skills, including sign language, taught by anthropologist Dr. Lyn Miles. In Malay and Indonesian, cantik means lovely or "beautiful"...
- Human evolutionary genetics
Human evolutionary genetics studies how one human genome differs from the other, the evolutionary past that gave rise to it, and its current effects. Differences between genomes have anthropological, medical and forensic implications and applications...
– more information on the speciation of humans and great apes
- Jeffrey H. Schwartz
Jeffrey Hugh Schwartz, PhD, is an American physical anthropologist and professor of biological anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, President of the World Academy of Art and Science ....
- List of apes
- List of fictional apes
- Orangutans in popular culture
Orangutans, two species of great apes indigenous to Indonesia and Malaysia, have been the subject of multiple popular culture references.-Famous orangutans:*Ah Meng , Sumatran Orangutan of Singapore...
External links