Orangutans are highly intelligent animals, sharing approximately 96% of our DNA. The name orangutan comes from the Malay word ‘orang’ for person, and ‘hutan’ which means forest, literally ‘person of the forest’. Orangutans are the largest tree-dwelling species in the world. .

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Adult male orangutans are almost double the size of females, growing up to 1.5 metres in height and a maximum weight of 120 kilograms. The males have large cheek pads and a large pouch of skin under their chin. Orangutans have evolved for a life in the trees with both hands and feet adapted for gripping branches.

BEHAVIOUR

Unlike their close relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, orangutans do not live in large social or family groups. The adult males are usually to be found alone and the females accompanied by one or two offspring. Adolescent orangutans spend time together travelling in very small groups.

DIET

Orangutans spend a large part of their day roaming the forest for widely distributed food sources. They eat over 400 different types of food including leaves, tree bark, flowers, stems and occasionally insects, although they are mainly frugivorous (fruit eaters).

LIFE EXPECTANCY

It is thought that in the wild, orangutans can live beyond 50 years of age. The longest living orangutan in captivity lived to 58 years.

Fossil evidence suggests orangutans once ranged throughout Southeast Asia from Java (Indonesia) up into Laos and southern China. The orangutan populations in the wild are in a dramatic state of decline. Now they are only present on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra with best estimates of population sizes at around 54,000 and 6,000 on the islands, respectively.

Orangutans are now the most highly endangered of the great apes as a result of destruction of their habitat and capture for the bushmeat or pet trade. A low reproductive rate and long birth intervals makes them particularly vulnerable. Though totally protected by law in Indonesia and by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, enforcement is extremely difficult in most areas.

The greatest threat facing orangutans is destruction of their rainforest habitat by illegal logging, oil palm plantations, acacia plantations, fire, mining and small scale shifting cultivation. Under ideal conditions these semi solitary animals roam the forests in search of widely distributed food sources but reduction of suitable habitat is forcing orangutan populations into smaller areas which cannot support them. In the last 20 years, an estimated 80% of orangutan habitat has been lost.

The main threat to orangutans is habitat loss. However this process of land clearing opens up previously inaccessible areas, exposing wild orangutans and consequently soe are shot. If infant orangutans survive the death of their mothers, they either end up as orphans in one of the rehabilitation centres or they are sold into the exotic pet trade.