| Latin Name: | Pongo pygmaeus |
| Category: | Mammals |
| Fun Facts: |
- The Malay words “orang hutan” mean “person of the forest.”
- Orangutans stand between four and five feet tall. A male orangutan weighs 110 to 200 pounds and a female weighs 65 to 110 pounds.
- Orangutans use leaves as umbrellas to keep them from getting wet in the rain.
- Orangutans are the only great ape found in Asia. The other great apes—gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos—all come from Africa.
- Orangutan females only give birth about once every eight years.
- Orangutans share 97% of the same DNA as humans.
- Orangutans can live 35 to 40 years in the wild.
|
| Information: |
Have you ever wished you could live in a treehouse? Though orangutans don’t have houses, they spend almost all of their time up in the trees. They have opposable thumbs and big toes, so they are able to grasp branches with both their hands and their feet. They can have an arm span of over seven feet, and their arms are about one and one half times as long as their legs. These long, strong arms make them awesome swingers and climbers. In fact, unless they can’t go tree-to-tree by branches, orangutans will rarely go down to the ground.
Everything orangutans need is in the trees. Their favorite food is fruit, especially figs, and they seem to know what fruit is ripe in what part of the forest at what time. They will occasionally eat insects or small mammals, but tend to be mostly herbivores. They drink rainwater collected on leaves and in the holes of trees. Orangutans even sleep in the trees. They build a new platform nest from leaves and branches each night and sleep 40 to 60 feet off of the ground!
 Orangutans tend to be more solitary than other apes. Orangutan offspring will stay with their mothers several years until they have learned where to find food, how to build nests and other survival techniques. Until they are fully mature in their early to mid-teens, they may stay in small groups with other juveniles. At age 15, male orangutans start to develop their wide cheek pads, which female orangutans find attractive in a mate. Males also have a throat sac that allows them to make a deep bellow, called a “long call,” that can be heard over a half mile away. This call establishes a male’s territory and is an invitation to females.
Orangutans live only on islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Unfortunately, they are now endangered because of logging and agriculture. In addition, poachers often kill mother orangutans to take their babies sale in the pet trade.
|
| Habitat: |
Located in the Voyage to Australia and the Islands Region, in The Islands side. The orangutans enjoy a large yard located in the ruins of an old temple. The abandoned building has been reclaimed and converted into a orangutan pre-release site. Research students post their findings on old chalk boards and information about orangutan populations in the wild are tacked about the room.
|