Orangutan

Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Primates Family: Hominidae Subfamily: Ponginae Genus: Pongo

Orangutans are the only exclusively Asian genus of extant great ape. The largest living arboreal animals, they have longer arms than the other, more terrestrial, great apes. They are among the most intelligent primate and use a variety of sophisticated tools, also making sleeping nests each night from branches and foliage. Their hair is typically reddish-brown, instead of the brown or black hair typical of other great apes.

Native to Indonesia, orangutans are currently found only in rainforests on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra though fossils have been found in Java, the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Vietnam and Mainland China. There are only two surviving species, both of which are endangered: theBornean Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) and the critically endangered Sumatran Orangutan (Pongo abelii). The subfamily Ponginae also includes the extinct genera Gigantopithecus and Sivapithecus. The word "orangutan" comes from the Indonesian words "orang" (man) and "(h)utan" (forest); hence, "man of the forest".

The populations on the two islands were classified as subspecies 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, thetype 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). 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.

The Sumatran species is critically endangered and the Bornean species of orangutans is endangered according to the IUCN Red List of mammals, and both are listed on Appendix I of CITES. The total number of Bornean orangutans is estimated to be less than 14% 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. 

A 2007 study by the Government of Indonesia noted in 2004 it was estimated that there was a total wild population of 61,234 orangutans, 54,567 of which were found on the island of Borneo. The table below shows a breakdown of the species and subspecies and their estimated populations from the report.

This indicates a decline from some estimates between 2000 and 2003 which found 7,300 Sumatran Orangutan individuals in the wild and between 45,000 and 69,000 Bornean Orangutans. 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. 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 destruction due to logging, mining 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 palm plantations in response to international demand (the palm oil is used for cooking, cosmetics, mechanics, and more recently as source of biodiesel). Some UN scientists believe that these plantations could lead to irreparable damage to orangutan habitat 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 Thailand and 50 of them were returned to Kalimantan 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.

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