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65% of the diet of orangutans consists of fruit. Orangutans primarily eat fruit, along with young leaves, bark, flowers, honey, insects, and vines. One of their preferred foods is the fruit of the durian tree, which tastes somewhat like sweet custard. Orangutans discard the skin, eat the flesh, and spit out the seeds. [citation needed]
Orangutans often interfere with these crops, however, to look for food to eat since they often cannot find food in the forest. [ 20 ] Over the past few decades, the rate of orangutan poaching has increased significantly due to the discovery of more efficient weapons and methods of killing, such as the use of poisons , AK-47s and explosives . [ 17 ]
It will also eat bird eggs and small vertebrates. [8] Sumatran orangutans spend far less time feeding on the inner bark of trees. Wild Sumatran orangutans in the Suaq Balimbing swamp have been observed using tools. [9] An orangutan will break off a tree branch that is about a foot long, snap off the twigs and fray one end with its teeth. [10]
Bornean orangutan are more solitary than their Sumatran relatives. Two or three orangutans with overlapping territories may interact, but only for short periods of time. [23] Although orangutans are not territorial, adult males will display threatening behaviors upon meeting other males, and only socialize with females to mate. [24]
Until well into the 19th century, juvenile orangutans were taken from the wild and died within short order, eventually leading naturalists to mistakenly assume that the living specimens they briefly encountered and skeletons of adult orangutans were entirely different species. [5]
Orangutans were originally considered to be one species. From 1996, they were divided into two species: the Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus, with three subspecies) and the Sumatran orangutan (P. abelii). A third species, the Tapanuli orangutan (P. tapanuliensis), was identified definitively in 2017.
A wounded orangutan was seen self-medicating with a plant known to relieve pain. It's the first time an animal has been observed applying medicine to a skin injury.
Once the fruit is safe, the ape will eat the seeds using the stick or its fingers. [45] Sumatran orangutans will use a stick to poke a bees' nest wall, move it around and catch the honey. [45] Orangutans have been observed using sticks to apparently measure the depth of water.