Orangutan information

Pongo pygmaeus

Once found throughout Southeast Asia, this species of ape now survives only in small populations across the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. The Orang utan is the largest tree dwelling mammal.

A dominant male ranges over a large territory mating with several females who give birth to a single offspring, weighting about 4 lbs every three to six years. The gestation period for the orang utan is 233 - 265 days. A mother spends years rearing the infant, and may have only two or three in a lifetime which undoubtedly adds to their diminishing numbers.

The male orang utan grows to around 5ft tall and can weigh up to 200 pounds. Females however only reach half that size. Orang utans reach maturity at 7 - 10 years of age and can live in the wild up to 40 years old.

The orang utan is almost completely arboreal (tree-dwelling), which is why it is found in the lowland forests of Borneo and Sumatra. They have no tails and therefore cannot jump. They navigate round the canopy by climbing and swinging from tree to tree.

They are highly intelligent animals and possess great strength, their strong hands and feet, which can grip like hands, are supremely adapted to life in the trees. Using their long arms, which span between 7-8ft across, they gracefully swing through the forest canopy.

These apes make a fresh nest in the crown of a tree every night and rarely come to the ground to drink – drinking instead the water that collects in tree holes.

Feeding Habits

Orang utans are mainly vegetarian, but occasionally will eat insects. By the age of 10, Orang utans have learned to identify more than 200 different food plants. These food plants range from Durians, wild figs and mangoes to leaves, twigs and honey.

Orang utans must eat vast quantities of these foods to survive and will spend almost half their day searching for sustenance. They know the location of many different fruit trees in the forest, a skill passed onto them by their mothers, and when each tree is due to bear fruit, which in some cases is only every two or three years. Recent research has link the El Ninio effect to the fruiting cycles of the rainforest trees. The loss of the rainforest hightens global warming and changes the weather systems, causing droughts and floods.

So why do they need help?

Just ten years ago the estimated population was around 27,000, today it could be as low as 15,000.

Indonesia and Malaysia were once covered in forest, but 40 years ago the wood became a valuable commodity as timber and the land perfect for farming and overzealous agriculture fast cleared the orang utans’ natural habitat.

In an attempt to improve the local economy, many world development banks fund palm oil plantations. Unfortunately, these plantations strip the land bare of its lowland forest. For example, a plantation can grow to be around 100,000 to 300,000 hectares in size.

Today agriculture and logging do not destroy the rainforest at the same rate as 40 years ago, but the problems created for the region’s wildlife then, remain the same today.

Almost unique to Borneo is the dipterocarp rainforest. Dipterocarp being the Latin name given to describe the two-winged seeds of the fruit of the trees that make up the forest.

When wind blows a ripe seed off a dipterocarp, the wing acts like the blades of a helicopter, allowing the seed to float at a distance from the parent tree and begin a life of its own. In these forests the trees can reach heights of more than 200 ft.

Man’s activities have forced Orang utans into much higher elevation forests, which are not as fertile and cannot support the same biodiversity as the lowland forests.

In addition, Orang utans need large areas of forest to survive as they are solitary creatures. Males are very territorial and live alone except when mating and will travel over long distances to find a mate.

As well as sharing 96.4% of human genes, these gentle creatures can also catch most of the diseases that effect humans including tuberculosis, pneumonia and polio.

The United nations has officially recognised the plight of these great apes and has launched The Great Apes Survival Project, however much of the help is directed to Indonesia, not Malaysia.

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