Orangutans are
great apes
The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the ...
native to the
rainforests of
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
and
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
. They are now found only in parts of
Borneo
Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and ea ...
and
Sumatra, but during the
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...
they ranged throughout
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...
and
South China. Classified in the
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
''Pongo'', orangutans were originally considered to be one species. From 1996, they were divided into two species: the
Bornean orangutan (''P. pygmaeus'', with three subspecies) and the
Sumatran orangutan (''P. abelii''). A third species, the
Tapanuli orangutan
The Tapanuli orangutan (''Pongo tapanuliensis'') is a species of orangutan restricted to South Tapanuli in the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. It is one of three known species of orangutan, alongside the Sumatran orangutan (''P. abelii''), fou ...
(''P. tapanuliensis''), was identified definitively in 2017. The orangutans are the only surviving species of the
subfamily Ponginae
Ponginae , also known as the Asian hominids, is a subfamily in the family Hominidae. Once a diverse lineage of Eurasian apes, the subfamily has only one extant genus, '' Pongo'' (orangutans), which contains three extant species; the Sumatran oran ...
, which diverged genetically from the other hominids (
gorilla
Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or fi ...
s,
chimpanzees, and
human
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...
s) between 19.3 and 15.7 million years ago.
The most
arboreal
Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally, but others are exclusively arboreal. The habitats pose nu ...
of the great apes, orangutans spend most of their time in trees. They have proportionally long arms and short legs, and have reddish-brown hair covering their bodies. Adult males weigh about , while females reach about .
Dominant adult males develop distinctive cheek pads or flanges and make long calls that attract females and intimidate rivals; younger subordinate males do not and more resemble adult females. Orangutans are the most solitary of the great apes: social bonds occur primarily between mothers and their dependent offspring. Fruit is the most important component of an orangutan's diet; but they will also eat vegetation,
bark,
honey
Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...
, insects and bird eggs. They can live over 30 years, both in the wild and in captivity.
Orangutans are among the most intelligent
primate
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians ( monkeys and apes, the latter including ...
s. They
use a variety of sophisticated tools and construct elaborate sleeping nests each night from branches and foliage. The apes' learning abilities have been studied extensively. There may be distinctive cultures within populations. Orangutans have been featured in literature and art since at least the 18th century, particularly in works that comment on human society. Field studies of the apes were pioneered by
primatologist Birutė Galdikas and they have been kept in captive facilities around the world since at least the early 19th century.
All three orangutan species are considered
critically endangered. Human activities have caused severe declines in populations and ranges. Threats to wild orangutan populations include
poaching
Poaching has been defined as the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights.
Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets. It was set a ...
(for
bushmeat and retaliation for consuming
crops),
habitat destruction
Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...
and
deforestation
Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated ...
(for
palm oil cultivation and
logging), and the illegal
pet trade
Wildlife trade refers to the of products that are derived from non-domesticated animals or plants usually extracted from their natural environment or raised under controlled conditions. It can involve the trade of living or dead individuals, ti ...
. Several
conservation
Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws.
Conservation may also refer to:
Environment and natural resources
* Nature conservation, the protection and managem ...
and
rehabilitation organisations are dedicated to the survival of orangutans in the wild.
Etymology
The name "orangutan" (also written orang-utan, orang utan, orangutang, and ourang-outang
) is derived from the
Malay words ''orang'', meaning "person", and ''hutan'', meaning "forest".
The locals originally used the name to refer to actual forest-dwelling human beings, but the word underwent a semantic extension to include apes of the ''Pongo'' genus at an early stage in the history of Malay.
The word ''orangutan'' appears in its older form ''urangutan'', in a variety of premodern sources in the
Old Javanese
Old Javanese or Kawi is the oldest attested phase of the Javanese language. It was spoken in the eastern part of what is now Central Java and the whole of East Java, Indonesia. As a literary language, Kawi was used across Java and on the island ...
language. The earliest of these is the
Kakawin Ramayana
''Kakawin Ramayana'' is an Old Javanese poem rendering of the Sanskrit Ramayana in ''kakawin'' meter.
''Kakawin Rāmâyaṇa'' is a '' kakawin'', the Javanese form of ''kāvya'', a poem modeled on traditional Sanskrit meters.It is believed to ...
, a ninth-century or early tenth-century Javanese adaption of the Sanskrit
Ramayana
The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th ...
. In these Old Javanese sources, the word ''urangutan'' refers only to apes and not to forest-dwelling human beings. The word was not originally Javanese, but was borrowed from an early
Malayic language
The Malayic languages are a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian language family. The most prominent member is Malay, which is the national language of Brunei, Singapore and Malaysia; it further serves as basis for Ind ...
at least a thousand years ago. Hence the ultimate origin of the term "orangutan" as denoting the ''Pongo'' ape was most likely
Old Malay
Malay was first used in the first millennia known as Old Malay, a part of the Austronesian language family. Over a period of two millennia, Malay has undergone various stages of development that derived from different layers of foreign influen ...
.
![Man-of-the-Woods](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Man-of-the-Woods.jpg)
The first printed attestation of the word for the apes is in Dutch physician
Jacobus Bontius
Jacobus Bontius (Jacob de Bondt) (1592, in Leiden – 30 November 1631, in Batavia, Dutch East Indies) was a Dutch physician and a pioneer of tropical medicine. He is known for the four-volume work ''De medicina Indorum''. His 1631 work "Historiae ...
’ 1631 ''Historiae naturalis et medicae Indiae orientalis''. He reported that Malays had informed him the ape could talk, but preferred not to "lest he be compelled to labour".
The word appeared in several German-language descriptions of Indonesian zoology in the 17th century. It has been argued that the word comes specifically from the
Banjarese variety of Malay,
but the age of the Old Javanese sources mentioned above make Old Malay a more likely origin for the term. Cribb and colleagues (2014) suggest that Bontius' account referred not to apes (as this description was from Java where the apes were not known from) but to humans suffering some serious medical condition (most likely
cretinism
Congenital iodine deficiency syndrome is a medical condition present at birth marked by impaired physical and mental development, due to insufficient thyroid hormone (hypothyroidism) often caused by insufficient dietary iodine during pregnancy. It ...
) and that his use of the word was misunderstood by
Nicolaes Tulp
Nicolaes Tulp (9 October 1593 – 12 September 1674) was a Dutch surgeon and mayor of Amsterdam. Tulp was well known for his upstanding moral character and as the subject of Rembrandt's famous painting ''The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp' ...
, who was the first to use the term in a publication a decade later.
The word was first attested in English in 1693 by physician
John Bulwer in the form ''Orang-Outang'',
and variants ending with ''-ng'' are found in many languages. This spelling (and pronunciation) has remained in use in English up to the present but has come to be regarded as
incorrect. The loss of "h" in ''utan'' and the shift from -ng to -n has been taken to suggest the term entered English through
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
.
In Malay, the term was first attested in 1840, not as an indigenous name but referring to how the English called the animal.
The word 'orangutan' in Malay and Indonesian today was borrowed from English or Dutch in the 20th century—explaining why the initial 'h' of 'hutan' is also missing.
The name of the genus, ''Pongo'', comes from a 16th-century account by
Andrew Battel
Andrew Battel ( fl. 1589–1614), was an English traveler. His account of his long stay in Portuguese captivity in Angola, and his travels in the region are essential primary sources for the history of that region, particularly for his early acc ...
, an English sailor held prisoner by the Portuguese in
Angola
, national_anthem = " Angola Avante"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capital = Luanda
, religion =
, religion_year = 2020
, religion_ref =
, coordina ...
, which describes two anthropoid "monsters" named Pongo and Engeco. He is now believed to have been describing
gorilla
Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or fi ...
s, but in the 18th century, the terms orangutan and pongo were used for all
great apes
The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the ...
. French naturalist
Bernard Germain de Lacépède used the term ''Pongo'' for the genus in 1799.
Battel's "Pongo", in turn, is from the
Kongo word ''mpongi'' or other
cognates
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical eff ...
from the region:
Lumbu
Lumbu is a Bantu language spoken in Gabon and the Republic of the Congo
The Republic of the Congo (french: République du Congo, ln, Republíki ya Kongó), also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply either Congo or the ...
''pungu'',
Vili ''mpungu'', or
Yombi ''yimpungu''.
Taxonomy and phylogeny
The orangutan was first
described scientifically in 1758 in the ''
Systema Naturae'' of
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his Nobility#Ennoblement, ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalise ...
as ''Homo troglodytes''.
It was renamed ''Simia
pygmaeus'' in 1760 by his student
Christian Emmanuel Hopp and given the name ''Pongo'' by Lacépède in 1799.
The populations on the two islands were suggested to be separate species when ''
P. abelii'' was described by French naturalist
René Lesson in 1827.
In 2001, ''P. abelii'' was confirmed as a full species based on molecular evidence published in 1996,
and three distinct populations on
Borneo
Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and ea ...
were elevated to subspecies (''P. p. pygmaeus'', ''P. p. morio'' and ''P. p. wurmbii'').
The description in 2017 of a third species, ''
P. tapanuliensis'', from Sumatra south of
Lake Toba
Lake Toba ( id, Danau Toba) ( Toba Batak: ᯖᯀᯬ ᯖᯬᯅ; romanized: ''Tao Toba'') is a large natural lake in North Sumatra, Indonesia, occupying the caldera of a supervolcano. The lake is located in the middle of the northern part of the i ...
, came with a surprising twist: it is more closely related to the Bornean species, ''P. pygmaeus'' than to its fellow Sumatran species, ''P. abelii''.
![Bornean, Sumatran & Tapanuli orangs (horizontal)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/Bornean%2C_Sumatran_%26_Tapanuli_orangs_%28horizontal%29.jpg)
The Sumatran orangutan genome was sequenced in January 2011.
Following humans and
chimpanzees, the Sumatran orangutan became the third species of
great ape
The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the ...
to have its genome sequenced. Subsequently, the Bornean species had its genome sequenced. Bornean orangutans (''P. pygmaeus'') have less
genetic diversity than in Sumatran ones (''P. abelii''), despite populations being six to seven times higher in Borneo. The researchers hope these data may help conservationists preserve the endangered ape, as well as learn more about human
genetic diseases
A genetic disorder is a health problem caused by one or more abnormalities in the genome. It can be caused by a mutation in a single gene (monogenic) or multiple genes (polygenic) or by a chromosomal abnormality. Although polygenic disorders ...
.
Similarly to gorillas and chimpanzees, orangutans have 48
diploid chromosome
A chromosome is a long DNA molecule with part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells the most important of these proteins are ...
s, in contrast to humans,
which have 46.
According to
molecular evidence, within apes (superfamily Hominoidea), the
gibbons diverged during the early
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...
between 24.1 and 19.7 million years ago (mya), and the orangutans diverged from the African great ape lineage between 19.3 and 15.7 mya. Israfil and colleagues (2011) estimated based on
mitochondrial,
Y-linked
Y linkage, also known as holandric inheritance (from Ancient Greek ὅλος ''hólos'', "whole" + ἀνδρός ''andrós'', "male"), describes traits that are produced by genes located on the Y chromosome. It is a form of sex linkage.
Y&nbs ...
, and
X-linked
Sex linked describes the sex-specific patterns of inheritance and presentation when a gene mutation (allele) is present on a sex chromosome (allosome) rather than a non-sex chromosome (autosome). In humans, these are termed X-linked recessive, ...
loci that the Sumatran and Bornean species diverged 4.9 to 2.9 mya.
By contrast, the 2011 genome study suggested that these two species diverged as recently as circa 400,000 years ago. The study also found that orangutans evolved at a slower pace than both chimpanzees and humans.
A 2017 genome study found that the Bornean and Tapanuli orangutans diverged from Sumatran orangutans about 3.4 mya, and from each other around 2.4 mya. Millions of years ago, orangutans travelled from mainland Asia to Sumatra and then Borneo as the islands were connected by
land bridge
In biogeography, a land bridge is an isthmus or wider land connection between otherwise separate areas, over which animals and plants are able to cross and colonize new lands. A land bridge can be created by marine regression, in which sea leve ...
s during the
recent glacial periods when sea levels were much lower. The present range of Tapanuli orangutans is thought to be close to where ancestral orangutans first entered what is now Indonesia from mainland Asia.
Fossil record
The three orangutan species are the only extant members of the
subfamily Ponginae
Ponginae , also known as the Asian hominids, is a subfamily in the family Hominidae. Once a diverse lineage of Eurasian apes, the subfamily has only one extant genus, '' Pongo'' (orangutans), which contains three extant species; the Sumatran oran ...
. This subfamily also includes extinct
ape
Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and as well as Europe in prehistory), which together with its sister g ...
s such as ''
Lufengpithecus
''Lufengpithecus'' () is an extinct genus of ape in the subfamily Ponginae. It is known from thousands of dental remains and a few skulls and probably weighed about . It contains three species: ''L. lufengensis'', ''L. hudienensis'' and ''L. k ...
'', which occurred 8–2
mya in southern China and Thailand.
''
Indopithecus
''Indopithecus giganteus'' () is an extinct species of large ape that lived in the late Miocene of the Siwalik Hills in northern India. Although frequently assigned to the more well-known genus '' Gigantopithecus'', recent authors consider it ...
'', which lived in India from 9.2 to 8.6 mya; and ''
Sivapithecus
''Sivapithecus'' () (syn: ''Ramapithecus)'' is a genus of extinct apes. Fossil remains of animals now assigned to this genus, dated from 12.2 million years old in the Miocene, have been found since the 19th century in the Siwalik Hills of the I ...
'', which lived in India and Pakistan from 12.5 mya until 8.5 mya. These animals likely lived in drier and cooler environments than orangutans do today. ''
Khoratpithecus
''Khoratpithecus'' is an extinct genus of pongin primates that lived during the late Miocene (7–9 million years ago) in Myanmar and Thailand.
Three species belong to this genus:
*''Khoratpithecus chiangmuanensis'' from Thailand (Chaimanee, ...
piriyai'', which lived 5–7 mya in Thailand, is believed to be the closest known relative of the living orangutans and inhabited similar environments.
The largest known primate, ''
Gigantopithecus
''Gigantopithecus'' ( ; ) is an extinct genus of ape from roughly 2 million to 350,000 years ago during the Early to Middle Pleistocene of southern China, represented by one species, ''Gigantopithecus blacki''. Potential identifications have als ...
'', was also a member of Ponginae and lived in China, from 2 mya to 300,000 years ago.
The oldest known record of ''Pongo'' is from the
Early Pleistocene of
Chongzuo
Chongzuo (; za, Cungzcoj) is a prefecture-level city in the south of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region near the Sino-Vietnamese border. It is home to one of China's largest Zhuang populations.
Geography and climate
Chongzuo is located in sout ...
, consisting of teeth ascribed to extinct species ''
P. weidenreichi''.
''Pongo'' is found as part of the faunal complex in the Pleistocene cave assemblage in Vietnam, alongside ''Giganopithecus'', though it is known only from teeth. Some
fossils described under the name ''
P. hooijeri'' have been found in 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. abelii'' or, in fact, represent distinct species. During the Pleistocene, ''Pongo'' had a far more extensive range than at present, extending throughout
Sundaland and mainland Southeast Asia and South China. Teeth of orangutans are known from
Peninsular Malaysia
Peninsular Malaysia ( ms, Semenanjung Malaysia; Jawi: سمننجڠ مليسيا), or the States of Malaya ( ms, Negeri-negeri Tanah Melayu; Jawi: نڬري-نڬري تانه ملايو), also known as West Malaysia or the Malaysian Peninsula, ...
that date to 60,000 years ago. The range of orangutans had contracted significantly by the end of the Pleistocene, most likely because of the reduction of forest habitat during the
Last Glacial Maximum.Though they may have survived into the Holocene in Cambodia and Vietnam.
Characteristics
![Pongo tapanuliensis male female](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Pongo_tapanuliensis_male_female.jpg)
Orangutans display significant
sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most an ...
; females typically stand tall and weigh around , while adult males stand tall and weigh . Compared to humans, they have proportionally long arms, a male orangutan having an
arm span of about , and short legs. They are covered in long reddish hair that starts out bright orange and darkens to
maroon or
chocolate
Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...
with age, while the skin is grey-black. Though largely hairless, males' faces can develop some hair, giving them a beard.
Orangutans have small ears and noses; the ears are unlobed.
[ The mean endocranial volume is 397 cm3.] The cranium is elevated relative to the face, which is incurved and prognathous.[ Compared to chimpanzees and gorillas, the ]brow ridge
The brow ridge, or supraorbital ridge known as superciliary arch in medicine, is a bony ridge located above the eye sockets of all primates. In humans, the eyebrows are located on their lower margin.
Structure
The brow ridge is a nodule or crest ...
of an orangutan is underdeveloped. Females and juveniles have relatively circular skulls and thin faces while mature males have a prominent sagittal crest, large cheek pads or flanges,[ extensive throat pouches and long ]canines
Canine may refer to:
Zoology and anatomy
* a dog-like Canid animal in the subfamily Caninae
** ''Canis'', a genus including dogs, wolves, coyotes, and jackals
** Dog, the domestic dog
* Canine tooth, in mammalian oral anatomy
People with the surn ...
. The cheek pads are made mostly of fatty tissue and are supported by the musculature of the face. The throat pouches act as resonance
Resonance describes the phenomenon of increased amplitude that occurs when the frequency of an applied Periodic function, periodic force (or a Fourier analysis, Fourier component of it) is equal or close to a natural frequency of the system ...
chambers for making long calls.
Orangutan hands have four long fingers but a dramatically shorter opposable thumb
The thumb is the first digit of the hand, next to the index finger. When a person is standing in the medical anatomical position (where the palm is facing to the front), the thumb is the outermost digit. The Medical Latin English noun for thumb ...
for a strong grip on branches as they travel high in the trees. The resting configuration of the fingers is curved, creating a suspensory hook grip. With the thumb out of the way, the fingers (and hands) can grip securely around objects with a small diameter by resting the tops of the fingers against the inside of the palm, thus creating a double-locked grip. Their feet have four long toes and an opposable big toe, giving them hand-like dexterity. The hip joints also allow for their legs to rotate similarly to their arms and shoulders.
Orangutans move through the trees by both vertical climbing and suspension
Suspension or suspended may refer to:
Science and engineering
* Suspension (topology), in mathematics
* Suspension (dynamical systems), in mathematics
* Suspension of a ring, in mathematics
* Suspension (chemistry), small solid particles suspende ...
. Compared to other great apes, they infrequently descend to the ground where they are more cumbersome. Unlike gorillas and chimpanzees, orangutans are not true knuckle-walkers, Instead they bend their digits and walk on the sides of their hands and feet.
Compared to their relatives in Borneo, Sumatran orangutans are more slender with paler and longer hair and a longer face. Tapanuli orangutans resemble Sumatran orangutans more than Bornean orangutans in body build and hair colour. They have shaggier hair, smaller skulls, and flatter faces than the other two species.
Ecology and behaviour
Orangutans are mainly arboreal
Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally, but others are exclusively arboreal. The habitats pose nu ...
and inhabit tropical rainforest
Tropical rainforests are rainforests that occur in areas of tropical rainforest climate in which there is no dry season – all months have an average precipitation of at least 60 mm – and may also be referred to as ''lowland equa ...
, particularly lowland dipterocarp
Dipterocarpaceae is a family of 16 genera and about 695 known species of mainly tropical lowland rainforest trees. The family name, from the type genus ''Dipterocarpus'', is derived from Greek (''di'' = two, ''pteron'' = wing and ''karpos'' = f ...
and old secondary forest. Populations are more concentrated near riverside habitats, such as freshwater and peat swamp forest
Peat swamp forests are tropical moist forests where waterlogged soil prevents dead leaves and wood from fully decomposing. Over time, this creates a thick layer of acidic peat. Large areas of these forests are being logged at high rates.
Peat ...
, while drier forests away from the flooded areas have less apes. Population density also decreases at higher elevations. Orangutans occasionally enter grasslands, cultivated fields, gardens, young secondary forest, and shallow lakes.
Most of the day is spent feeding, resting, and travelling. They start the day feeding for two to three hours in the morning. They rest during midday, then travel in the late afternoon. When evening arrives, they prepare their nests for the night. Potential predators of orangutans include tiger
The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on ...
s, clouded leopards and wild dogs
Wild Dogs is an American heavy metal band from Portland, Oregon, formed loosely in 1981 by original members Jeff Mark, Danny Kurth, Matt McCourt, and Pete Holmes. The band has since released six albums, three live albums and one DVD. Wild Dogs ...
. The most common orangutan parasites are nematodes of the genus '' Strongyloides'' and the ciliate
The ciliates are a group of alveolates characterized by the presence of hair-like organelles called cilia, which are identical in structure to eukaryotic flagella, but are in general shorter and present in much larger numbers, with a differen ...
'' Balantidium coli''. Among ''Strongyloides'', the species ''S. fuelleborni'' and ''S. stercoralis'' are reported in young individuals. Orangutans also use the plant species '' Dracaena cantleyi'' as an anti-inflammatory balm.
Diet and feeding
Orangutans are primarily fruit-eaters, which can take up 57–80% of their foraging time. Even during times of scarcity, fruit is 16% of their feeding time. Fruits with soft pulp, arils or seed-walls are consumed the most, particularly fig
The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Moraceae. Native to the Mediterranean and western Asia, it has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world ...
s but also drupes and berries. Orangutans are thought to be the sole fruit disperser for some plant species including the vine
A vine (Latin ''vīnea'' "grapevine", "vineyard", from ''vīnum'' "wine") is any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent (that is, climbing) stems, lianas or runners. The word ''vine'' can also refer to such stems or runners themsel ...
species '' Strychnos ignatii'' which contains the toxic alkaloid
Alkaloids are a class of basic, naturally occurring organic compounds that contain at least one nitrogen atom. This group also includes some related compounds with neutral and even weakly acidic properties. Some synthetic compounds of similar ...
strychnine.
Orangutans also include leaves in their diet, which take up 25% of their average foraging time. Leaves are eaten more when fruit is less available, but even during times of fruit abundance, orangutans will eat leaves 11–20% of the time. They appear to depend on the leaf and stem material of '' Borassodendron borneensis'' during times of low fruit abundance. Other food items consumed by the apes include bark, honey
Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...
, bird eggs, insects and small vertebrates including slow loris
Slow lorises are a group of several species of nocturnal strepsirrhine primates that make up the genus ''Nycticebus''. Found in Southeast Asia and bordering areas, they range from Bangladesh and Northeast India in the west to the Sulu Archip ...
es.
In some areas, orangutans may practice geophagy
Geophagia (), also known as geophagy (), is the intentional practice of eating earth or soil-like substances such as clay, chalk, or termite mounds. It is a behavioural adaptation that occurs in many non-human animals and has been documented in ...
, which involves consuming soil and other earth substances. They will uproot soil from the ground as well as eat shelter tubes from tree trunks. Orangutans also visit the sides of cliffs or earth depressions for their mineral licks. Orangutans may eat soils for their anti-toxic kaolin
Kaolinite ( ) is a clay mineral, with the chemical composition Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4. It is an important industrial mineral. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet of silica () linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral ...
minerals, since their diet contains toxic tannin
Tannins (or tannoids) are a class of astringent, polyphenolic biomolecules that bind to and precipitate proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids.
The term ''tannin'' (from Anglo-Norman ''tanner'' ...
s and phenolic acid
Phenolic acids or phenolcarboxylic acids are types of aromatic acid compounds. Included in that class are substances containing a phenolic ring and an organic carboxylic acid function (C6-C1 skeleton). Two important naturally occurring types of ph ...
s.
Social life
The social structure of the orangutan can be best described as solitary but social
Sociality is the degree to which individuals in an animal population tend to associate in social groups (gregariousness) and form cooperative societies.
Sociality is a survival response to evolutionary pressures. For example, when a mother wasp ...
; they live a more solitary lifestyle than the other great apes. Bornean orangutans are generally more solitary than Sumatran orangutans. Most social bonds occur between adult females and their dependent and weaned offspring. Resident females live with their offspring in defined home ranges that overlap with those of other adult females, which may be their immediate relatives. One to several resident female home ranges are encompassed within the home range of a resident male, who is their main mating partner. Interactions between adult females range from friendly to avoidance to antagonistic. Flanged males are hostile to both other flanged males and unflanged males, while unflanged males are more peaceful towards each other.
Orangutans disperse and establish their home ranges by age 11. Females tend to live near their birth range, while males disperse farther but may still visit their birth range within their larger home range. They enter a transient phase, which lasts until a male can challenge and displace a dominant, resident male from his home range. Both resident and transient orangutans aggregate on large fruiting trees to feed. The fruits tend to be abundant, so competition is low and individuals may engage in social interactions. Orangutans will also form travelling groups with members moving between different food sources. They are often consortships between an adult male and a female. Social grooming is uncommon among orangutans.
Communication
Orangutans communicate with various vocals and sounds. Males will make long calls, both to attract females and to advertise themselves to other males. These calls have three components; they begin with grumbles, peak with pulses and end with bubbles. Both sexes will try to intimidate conspecifics with a series of low frequency noises known collectively as the "rolling call". When uncomfortable, an orangutan will produce a "kiss squeak", which involves sucking in air through pursed lips. Mothers produce throatscrapes to keep in contact with their offspring. Infants make soft hoots when distressed. When building a nest, orangutans will produce smacks or blow raspberries. Orangutan calls display consonant- and vowel-like components and they maintain their meaning over great distances.
Mother orangutans and offspring also use several different gestures and expressions such as beckoning, stomping, lower lip pushing, object shaking and "presenting" a body part. These communicate goals such as "acquire object", "climb on me", "climb on you", "climb over", "move away", "play change: decrease intensity", "resume play" and "stop that".
Reproduction and development
Males become sexually mature at around age 15. They may exhibit arrested development
The term "arrested development" has had multiple meanings for over 200 years. In the field of medicine, the term "arrested development" was first used, ''circa'' 1835–1836, to mean a stoppage of physical development; the term continues to be use ...
by not developing the distinctive cheek pads, pronounced throat pouches, long fur, or long calls until a resident dominant male is absent. The transformation from unflanged to flanged can occur quickly. Flanged males attract females in oestrous with their characteristic long calls, which may also suppress development in younger males.[
Unflanged males wander widely in search of oestrous females and upon finding one, will force copulation on her, the occurrence of which is unusually high among mammals. Females prefer to mate with the fitter flanged males, forming pairs with them and benefiting from their protection.] Non- ovulating females do not usually resist copulation with unflanged males, as the chance of conception is low.[ Homosexual behaviour has been recorded in the context of both affiliative and aggressive interactions.
]
Unlike females of other non-human great ape species, orangutans do not exhibit sexual swellings to signal fertility.[ A female first gives birth around 15 years of age and they have a six to nine year interbirth interval, the longest among the great apes.] Gestation is around nine months long and infants are born at a weight of .[ Usually only a single infant is born; twins are a rare occurrence. Unlike many other primates, male orangutans do not seem to practice infanticide. This may be because they cannot ensure they will sire a female's next offspring, because she does not immediately begin ovulating again after her infant dies. There is evidence that females with offspring under six years old generally avoid adult males.
Females do most of the caring of the young. The mother will carry the infant while travelling, suckle it and sleep with it.][ During its first four months, the infant is almost never without physical contact and clings to its mother's belly. In the following months, the amount of physical contact the infant has with its mother declines. When an orangutan reaches the age of one-and-a-half years, its climbing skills improve and it will travel through the canopy holding hands with other orangutans, a behaviour known as "buddy travel".] After two years of age, juvenile orangutans will begin to move away from their mothers temporarily. They reach adolescence at six or seven years of age and are able to live alone but retain some connections with their mothers.[ Females may nurse their offspring for up to eight years, which is more than any mammal. Typically, orangutans live over 30 years both in the wild and in captivity.]
Nesting
Orangutans build nests specialised for either day or night use. These are carefully constructed; young orangutans learn from observing their mother's nest-building behaviour. In fact, nest-building allows young orangutans to become less dependent on their mother. From six months of age onwards, orangutans practice nest-building and gain proficiency by the time they are three years old.
Construction of a night nest is done by following a sequence of steps. Initially, a suitable tree is located. Orangutans are choosy about sites, though nests can be found in many tree species. To establish a foundation, the ape grabs the large branches under it and bends them so they join together. The orangutan then does the same to smaller, leafier branches to create a "mattress". After this, the ape stands and braids the tips of branches into the mattress. Doing this increases the stability of the nest. Orangutans make their nests more comfortable by creating "pillows", "blankets", "roofs" and "bunk-beds".
Intelligence
Orangutans are among the most intelligent non-human primates. Experiments suggest they can track the displacement of objects both visible and hidden. Zoo Atlanta
Zoo Atlanta (sometimes referred as Atlanta Zoo) is an Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) accredited zoological park in Atlanta, Georgia. The current president and CEO of Zoo Atlanta is Raymond B. King.
History
Zoo Atlanta was founded in ...
has a touch-screen computer on which their two Sumatran orangutans play games. A 2008 study of two orangutans at the Leipzig Zoo
Leipzig Zoological Garden, or Leipzig Zoo (german: link=no, Zoologischer Garten Leipzig) is a zoo in Leipzig`s district Mitte, Germany. It was first opened on June 9, 1878. It was taken over by the city of Leipzig in 1920 after World War I and no ...
showed orangutans may practice "calculated reciprocity", which involves an individual aiding another with the expectation of being paid back. Orangutans are the first nonhuman species documented to do so.
In a 1997 study, two captive adult orangutans were tested with the cooperative pulling paradigm
The cooperative pulling paradigm is an experimental design in which two or more animals pull rewards toward themselves via an apparatus that they cannot successfully operate alone. Researchers (ethologists, comparative psychologists, and evolut ...
. Without any training, the orangutans succeeded in pulling off an object to get food in the first session. Over the course of 30 sessions, the apes succeeded more quickly, having learned to coordinate. An adult orangutan has been documented to pass the mirror test
The mirror test—sometimes called the mark test, mirror self-recognition (MSR) test, red spot technique, or rouge test—is a behavioral technique developed in 1970 by American psychologist Gordon Gallup Jr. as an attempt to determine whether an ...
, indicating self-awareness. Mirror tests with a 2-year-old orangutan failed to reveal self-recognition.
Studies in the wild indicate that flanged male orangutans plan their movements in advance and signal them to other individuals. Experiments have also suggested that orangutans can communicate about things that are not present: mother orangutans remain silent in the presence of a perceived threat but when it passes, the mother produces an alarm call to their offspring to teach them about the danger. Orangutans and other great apes show laughter-like vocalisations in response to physical contact such as wrestling, play chasing or tickling. This suggests that laughter derived from a common origin among primate species and therefore evolved before the origin of humans. Orangutans can learn to mimic new sounds by purposely controlling the vibrations of their vocal folds, a trait that led to speech in humans. Bonnie
Bonnie, is a Scottish given name and is sometimes used as a descriptive reference, as in the Scottish folk song, My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean. It comes from the Scots language word "bonnie" (pretty, attractive), or the French bonne (good). That ...
, an orangutan at the US National Zoo, was recorded spontaneously whistling after hearing a caretaker. She appears to whistle without expecting a food reward.
Tool use and culture
Tool use in orangutans was observed by primatologist Birutė Galdikas in ex-captive populations. Orangutans in Suaq Balimbing were recorded to develop a tool kit for use in foraging which consisted of both insect-extraction sticks for use in the hollows of trees and seed-extraction sticks for harvesting seeds from hard-husked fruit. The orangutans adjusted their tools according to the task at hand, and preference was given to oral tool use. This preference was also found in an experimental study of captive orangutans. Orangutans have been observed to use sticks to poke at catfish with sticks, causing then to leap out of the water so ape can grab them. Orangutan have also been documented to keep tools for later. When building a nest, orangutans appear to able to determine which branches would better support their body weight.
Primatologist Carel P. van Schaik and biological anthropologist Cheryl D. Knott further investigated tool use in different wild orangutan populations. They compared geographic variations in tool use related to the processing of ''Neesia'' fruit. The orangutans of Suaq Balimbing were found to be avid users of insect and seed-extraction tools when compared to other wild orangutans. The scientists suggested these differences are cultural as they do not correlate with habitat. The orangutans at Suaq Balimbing are closely spaced and relatively tolerant of each other; this creates favourable conditions for the spreading of new behaviours. Further evidence that highly social orangutans are more likely to exhibit cultural behaviours came from a study of leaf-carrying behaviours of formerly captive orangutans that were being rehabilitated on the island of Kaja in Borneo.
Wild orangutans in Tuanan, Borneo, were reported to use tools in acoustic communication. They use leaves to amplify the kiss squeak sounds they produce. The apes may employ this method of amplification to deceive
Deception or falsehood is an act or statement that misleads, hides the truth, or promotes a belief, concept, or idea that is not true. It is often done for personal gain or advantage. Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda and sleight ...
the listener into believing they are larger animals. In 2003, researchers from six different orangutan field sites who used the same behavioural coding scheme compared the behaviours of the animals from each site. They found each orangutan population used different tools. The evidence suggested the differences were cultural: first, the extent of the differences increased with distance, suggesting cultural diffusion was occurring, and second, the size of the orangutans' cultural repertoire increased according to the amount of social contact present within the group. Social contact facilitates cultural transmission.
Personhood
In June 2008, Spain would become the first country to recognise the rights of some non-human great apes, based on the guidelines of the Great Ape Project
The Great Ape Project (GAP), founded in 1993, is an international organization of primatologists, anthropologists, ethicists, and others who advocate a United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Great Apes that would confer basic legal right ...
, which are that chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and gorillas not to be used for animal experiments. In December 2014, a court in Argentina ruled that an orangutan named Sandra at the Buenos Aires Zoo
The Buenos Aires Eco Park ( es, Ecoparque de Buenos Aires) is an park in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The former zoo, opened in 1888, contained 89 species of mammals, 49 species of reptiles and 175 species of birds, with a tot ...
must be moved to a sanctuary in Brazil to provide her "partial or controlled freedom". Animal rights groups like Great Ape Project Argentina argued the ruling should apply to all species in captivity, and legal specialists from the Argentina's Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassatio considered the ruling applicable only to non-human hominids.
Orangutans and humans
Orangutans were known to the native people of Sumatra and Borneo for millennia. The apes are known as ''maias'' in Sarawak
Sarawak (; ) is a state of Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island, and is bordered by the Malaysian state of Sabah to the northeast, ...
and ''mawas'' in other parts of Borneo and in Sumatra. While some communities hunted them for food and decoration, others placed taboos on such practices. In central Borneo, some traditional folk beliefs consider it bad luck to look an orangutan in the face. Some folk tales involve orangutans mating with and kidnapping humans. There are even stories of hunters being captured by female orangutans.
Europeans became aware of the existence of the orangutan in the 17th century. Explorers in Borneo hunted them extensively during the 19th century. In 1779, Dutch anatomist Petrus Camper
Petrus Camper FRS (11 May 1722 – 7 April 1789), was a Dutch physician, anatomist, physiologist, midwife, zoologist, anthropologist, palaeontologist and a naturalist in the Age of Enlightenment. He was one of the first to take an interest in ...
, who observed the animals and dissected some specimens, give the first scientific description of the orangutan. Camper mistakenly thought that flanged and unflanged male orangutans were different species, a misconception corrected after his death.
Little was known about orangutan behaviour until the field studies of Birutė Galdikas, who became a leading authority on the apes. When she arrived in Borneo in 1971, Galdikas settled into a primitive bark-and-thatch hut at a site she dubbed Camp Leakey, in Tanjung Puting
Tanjung Puting National Park is a national park in Indonesia located in the southeast part of West Kotawaringin Regency in the Indonesian province of Central Kalimantan (Central Borneo). The nearest main town is the capital of the Regency, Pa ...
. She studied orangutans for the next four years and developed her PhD thesis for UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...
. Galdikas became an outspoken advocate for orangutans and the preservation of their rainforest habitat, which is rapidly being devastated by loggers
Lumberjacks are mostly North American workers in the logging industry who perform the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to loggers in the era (before 1945 in the Unite ...
, palm oil plantations, gold miner
Gold mining is the extraction of gold resources by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. However, with the expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface ...
s, and unnatural forest fires
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identif ...
. Along with Jane Goodall
Dame Jane Morris Goodall (; born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall on 3 April 1934), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English primatologist and anthropologist. Seen as the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best kn ...
and Dian Fossey
Dian Fossey (, January 16, 1932 – ) was an American primatologist and conservationist known for undertaking an extensive study of mountain gorilla groups from 1966 until her murder in 1985. She studied them daily in the mountain forests of R ...
, Galdikas is considered to be one of Leakey's Angels, named after anthropologist Louis Leakey.
In fiction
Orangutans first appeared in Western fiction in the 18th century and have been used to comment on human society. Written by the pseudonymous A. Ardra, ''Tintinnabulum naturae'' (The Bell of Nature, 1772) is told from the point of view of a human-orangutan hybrid who calls himself the "metaphysician of the woods". Around 50 years later, the anonymously written work ''The Orang Outang'' is narrated by a pure orangutan in captivity in the US, writing a letter critiquing Boston society to her friend in Java.
Thomas Love Peacock
Thomas Love Peacock (18 October 1785 – 23 January 1866) was an English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Company. He was a close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and they influenced each other's work. Peacock wrote satirical novels, ...
's 1817 novel '' Melincourt'' features Sir Oran Haut Ton, an orangutan who lives among English people and becomes a candidate for Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...
. The novel satirises the class and political system of Britain. Oran's purity and status as a "natural man" stand in contrast to the immorality and corruption of the "civilised" humans. In Frank Challice Constable's ''The Curse of Intellect'' (1895), the protagonist Reuben Power travels to Borneo and captures an orangutan to train it to speak so he can "know what a beast like that might think of us". Orangutans are featured prominently in the 1963 science fiction novel ''Planet of the Apes
''Planet of the Apes'' is an American science fiction media franchise consisting of films, books, television series, comics, and other media about a world in which humans and intelligent apes clash for control. The franchise is based on Frenc ...
'' by Pierre Boulle
Pierre François Marie Louis Boulle (20 February 1912 – 30 January 1994) was a French novelist best known for two works, '' The Bridge over the River Kwai'' (1952) and ''Planet of the Apes'' (1963), that were both made into award-winning films. ...
and the media franchise derived from it. Orangutans are typically portrayed as bureaucrat
A bureaucrat is a member of a bureaucracy and can compose the administration of any organization of any size, although the term usually connotes someone within an institution of government.
The term ''bureaucrat'' derives from "bureaucracy", w ...
s like Dr. Zaius, the science minister.
Orangutans are sometimes portrayed as antagonists, notably in the 1832 Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy ...
novel '' Count Robert of Paris'' and the 1841 Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...
short story ''The Murders in the Rue Morgue
"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in ''Graham's Magazine'' in 1841. It has been described as the first modern detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination".
C. Auguste Du ...
''. Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
's 1967 animated musical adaptation of ''The Jungle Book
''The Jungle Book'' (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, w ...
'' added a jazzy orangutan named King Louie
King Louie is a fictional character introduced in Walt Disney's 1967 animated musical film '' The Jungle Book''. He is an Orangutan who leads other jungle primates and wants to become more human-like by gaining knowledge of fire from Mowgli. L ...
, who tries to get Mowgli to teach him how to make fire. The 1986 horror film '' Link'' features an intelligent orangutan which serves a university professor but has sinister motives; he plots against humanity and stalks a female student assistant. Other stories have portrayed orangutans helping humans, such as The Librarian in Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English humourist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his '' Discworld'' series of 41 novels.
Pratchett's first no ...
's fantasy novels ''Discworld
''Discworld'' is a comic fantasy"Humorous Fantasy" in David Pringle, ed., ''The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy'' (pp.31-33). London, Carlton,2006. book series written by the English author Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat ...
'' and in Dale Smith's 2004 novel ''What the Orangutan Told Alice''. More comical portrayals of the orangutan include the 1996 film ''Dunston Checks In
''Dunston Checks In'' is a 1996 Canadian-American children's comedy film directed by Ken Kwapis. The film stars Eric Lloyd, Graham Sack, Jason Alexander, Faye Dunaway, Rupert Everett, Paul Reubens, Glenn Shadix, and Sam the Orangutan as Dunston. T ...
''.
In captivity
By the early 19th century, orangutans were being kept in captivity. In 1817, an orangutan joined several other animals in London's Exeter Exchange
The Exeter Exchange (signed and popularly known as Exeter Change) was a building on the north side of the Strand in London, with an arcade extending partway across the carriageway. It is most famous for the menagerie that occupied its upper floo ...
. The ape was recorded to have rejected the company of other animals, aside from a dog, and preferred to be with humans. He was occasionally taken on coach rides clothed in a smock-frock
A smock-frock or smock is an outer garment traditionally worn by rural workers, especially shepherds and waggoners, in parts of England and Wales throughout the 18th century. Today, the word smock refers to a loose overgarment worn to protect o ...
and hat and even given drinks at an inn where he behaved politely for the hosts. The London Zoo housed a female orangutan named Jenny
Jenny may refer to:
* Jenny (given name), a popular feminine name and list of real and fictional people
* Jenny (surname), a family name
Animals
* Jenny (donkey), a female donkey
* Jenny (gorilla), the oldest gorilla in captivity at the time of ...
who was dressed in human clothing and learned to drink tea. She is remembered for her meeting with Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...
who compared her reactions to those of a human child.
Zoos and circuses in the Western world would continue to use orangutans and other simians as sources for entertainment, training them to behave like humans at tea parties and to perform tricks. Notable orangutan "character actors" include Jacob and Rosa of the Tierpark Hagenbeck
The Tierpark Hagenbeck is a zoo in Stellingen, Hamburg, Germany. The collection began in 1863 with animals that belonged to Carl Hagenbeck Sr. (1810–1887), a fishmonger who became an amateur animal collector. The park itself was founded by Ca ...
in the early 20th century, Joe Martin of Universal City in the 1910s and 1920s, and Jiggs of the San Diego Zoo
The San Diego Zoo is a zoo in Balboa Park, San Diego, California, housing 4000 animals of more than 650 species and subspecies on of Balboa Park leased from the City of San Diego. Its parent organization, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, is a p ...
in the 1930s and 1940s. Animal rights
Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their Utilitarianism, utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding s ...
groups have urged a stop to such acts, considering them abusive. Starting in the 1960s, zoos became more concerned with education and orangutans exhibits were designed to mimic their natural environment and displayed their natural behaviours.
Ken Allen
Ken Allen (February 13, 1971 – December 1, 2000) was a Bornean orangutan at the San Diego Zoo. He became one of the most popular animals in the history of the zoo because of his many successful escapes from his enclosures. He was nickname ...
, an orangutan of the San Diego Zoo, became world famous in the 1980s for multiple escapes from his enclosures. He was nicknamed "the hairy Houdini" and was the subject of a fan club, T-shirts, bumper stickers and a song titled ''The Ballad of Ken Allen''.
Galdikas reported that her cook was sexually assaulted by a captive male orangutan. The ape may have suffered from a skewed species identity and forced copulation is a standard mating strategy for low-ranking male orangutans. American animal trafficker Frank Buck claimed to have seen human mothers acting as wet nurses to orphaned orangutan babies in hopes of keeping them alive long enough to sell to a trader, which would be an instance of human–animal breastfeeding
Human to animal breastfeeding has been practiced in some different cultures during various time periods. The practice of breastfeeding or suckling between humans and other species occurred in both directions: women sometimes breastfed young animals ...
.
Conservation
Status and threats
All three species are critically endangered according to the IUCN Red List
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...
of mammals. They are legally protected from capture, harm or killing in both Malaysia and Indonesia, and are listed under Appendix I by CITES
CITES (shorter name for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of interna ...
, which prohibits their unlicensed trade under international law. The Bornean orangutan range has become more fragmented, with few or no apes documented in the southeast. The largest remaining population is found in the forest around the Sabangau River, but this environment is at risk. The Sumatran orangutan is found only in the northern part of Sumatra, most of the population inhabiting the Leuser Ecosystem The Leuser Ecosystem is an area of forest located in the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. Covering more than 2.6 million hectares it is one of the richest expanses of tropical rain forest in Southeast A ...
. The Tapanuli orangutan is found only in the Batang Toru forest of Sumatra.
Birutė Galdikas wrote that orangutans were already threatened by poaching
Poaching has been defined as the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights.
Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets. It was set a ...
and deforestation
Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated ...
when she began studying them in 1971. By the 2000s, orangutan habitats decreased rapidly because of logging, mining and fragmentation by roads. A major factor has been the conversion of vast areas of tropical forest
Tropical forests (a.k.a. jungle) are forested landscapes in tropical regions: ''i.e.'' land areas approximately bounded by the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn, but possibly affected by other factors such as prevailing winds.
Some tropical fore ...
to palm oil plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
s in response to international demand. Hunting is also a major problem, as is the illegal pet trade
Wildlife trade refers to the of products that are derived from non-domesticated animals or plants usually extracted from their natural environment or raised under controlled conditions. It can involve the trade of living or dead individuals, ti ...
. Orangutans may be killed for the bushmeat trade and bones are secretly sold in souvenir shops in several cities in Indonesian Borneo. Conflicts between locals and orangutans also pose a threat. Orangutans that have lost their homes often raid agricultural areas and end up being killed by villagers. Locals may also be motivated to kill orangutans for food or because of their perceived danger. Mother orangutans are killed so their infants can be sold as pets. Between 2012 and 2017, the Indonesian authorities, with the aid of the Orangutan Information Center, seized 114 orangutans, 39 of which were pets.
Estimates between 2000 and 2003 found 7,300 Sumatran orangutans and between 45,000 and 69,000 Bornean orangutans remain in the wild. A 2016 study estimates a population of 14,613 Sumatran orangutans in the wild, twice that of previous population estimates. Less than 800 Tapanuli orangutan are estimated to still exist, which puts the species among the most endangered of the great apes. The table below shows a breakdown of the species and subspecies and their estimated populations from this or (in the case of ''P. tapanuliensis'') a 2017 report:
Conservation centres and organisations
Several organisations are working for the rescue, rehabilitation and reintroduction of orangutans. The largest of these is the Borneo Orangutan Survival
The Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS) Foundation is an Indonesian non-profit non-governmental organization founded by Dr. Willie Smits in 1991 and dedicated to the conservation of the endangered Bornean orangutan (''Pongo pygmaeus'') and its habit ...
(BOS) Foundation, founded by conservationist Willie Smits and which operates projects such as the Nyaru Menteng Rehabilitation Program founded by conservationist Lone Drøscher Nielsen
Lone Drøscher Nielsen (born 1964) is a Danish wildlife conservationist who established the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Reintroduction Project in Kalimantan, Borneo, Indonesia in 1998.
Early life and work
She was born and grew up in Aabybro, Denmark. ...
. A female orangutan was rescued from a village brothel in Kareng Pangi village, Central Kalimantan, in 2003. The orangutan was shaved and chained for sexual purposes. Since being freed, the orangutan, named Pony, has been living with the BOS. She has been re-socialised to live with other orangutans. In May 2017, the BOS rescued an albino orangutan from captivity. The rare primate was being held captive in a remote village in Kapuas Hulu, on the island of Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo. According to volunteers at BOS, albino orangutans are extremely rare (one in ten thousand). This is the first albino orangutan the organisation has seen in 25 years of activity.
Other major conservation centres in Indonesia include those at Tanjung Puting National Park, Sebangau National Park, Gunung Palung National Park
Mount Palung National Park ( id, Taman Nasional Gunung Palung) lies on the island of Borneo, in the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan, north of Ketapang and east of Sukadana.
History
Mount Palung was first protected in 1937 as a forest nat ...
and Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park
Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park ( id, Taman Nasional Bukit Baka Bukit Raya) is a national park located on Borneo Island, Indonesia. It is named after the mountains of Bukit Baka () and Bukit Raya (),Ministry of Forestry of Indonesia"Taman ...
in Borneo and the Gunung Leuser National Park and Bukit Lawang in Sumatra. In Malaysia, conservation areas include Semenggoh Wildlife Centre and Matang Wildlife Centre also in Sarawak, and the Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary
Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre is located about 25 kilometres west of Sandakan in the state of Sabah, Malaysia.
The centre opened in 1964 as the first official orangutan
Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of I ...
in Sabah. Major conservation centres headquartered outside the orangutans' home countries include Frankfurt Zoological Society
Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) is an international conservation organization founded in 1858 with headquarters in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. FZS focuses on maintaining biodiversity and conserving wildlife and ecosystems in protected areas an ...
, Orangutan Foundation International Orangutan Foundation International (OFI) has its headquarters in Los Angeles, California. Founded by Dr. Birutė Galdikas, one of three anthropologists (The Trimates) to study great apes under the guidance of Dr. Louis Leakey, OFI continues to res ...
, which was founded by Galdikas, and the Australian Orangutan Project
The Australian Orangutan Project t/a The Orangutan Project (TOP) is a non-profit registered Australian environmental organisation established in 1998, which raises funds to support the conservation and protection of orangutans and the preservati ...
. Conservation organisations such as the Orangutan Land Trust work with the palm oil industry to improve sustainability and encourages the industry to establish conservation areas for orangutans.
See also
* International Primate Day
* List of individual apes
This is a list of non-human apes of encyclopedic interest. It includes individual chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, bonobos, and gibbons that are in some way famous or notable.
Actors
* Bam Bam, an orangutan, played Precious on the soap opera ...
* Monkey Day
Monkey Day is an unofficial international holiday celebrated on December 14. The holiday was created and popularized in 2000 by controversial artists Casey Sorrow and Eric Millikin when they were art students at Michigan State University. Monkey ...
* Orang Pendek
* ''Orangutan Island
''Orangutan Island'' is an American documentary television series, in the style of the earlier series ''Meerkat Manor'', that blends more traditional documentary filming with dramatic narration. The series was produced by NHNZ with creator Judit ...
''
* ''Skullduggery'' (1970 film)
References
External links
Orangutan Foundation International
AZA's Orangutan Conservation Education Center
Orangutan Language Project
The Orangutan Foundation
Orangutan Land Trust
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Primates of Indonesia
Articles containing video clips
Species endangered by the pet trade
Tool-using mammals
Fauna of Southeast Asia
Taxa named by Bernard Germain de Lacépède
Taxa described in 1799