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Orangutans are the only great apes in Asia, making their homes on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra in the Malay archipelago. Orangutans are arboreal, meaning they primarily live in the trees.
The Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii) is one of the three species of orangutans. Critically endangered , and found only in the north of the Indonesian island of Sumatra , it is rarer than the Bornean orangutan but more common than the recently identified Tapanuli orangutan , also found in Sumatra.
The Bornean orangutan and the Sumatran orangutan diverged about 400,000 years ago, [2] with a continued low level of gene flow between them since then. [2] The two orangutan species were considered merely subspecies until 1996; they were elevated to species following sequencing of their mitochondrial DNA. The Bornean orangutan has three ...
Compared to their relatives in Borneo, Sumatran orangutans are more slender with paler and longer hair and a longer face. [36] Tapanuli orangutans resemble Sumatran orangutans more than Bornean orangutans in body build and hair colour. [21] They have shaggier hair, smaller skulls, and flatter faces than the other two species. [44]
There are three types of orangutans left in the world. The Bornean, the Tapanuli and the Sumatran. It’s believed that there are only 14,000 individual Sumatran orangutans left in the wild.
The number of Bornean orangutans has decreased by more than 60% in 60 years, and the population of the Sumatran orangutan has decreased by 80% in the last 75 years. [2] It is estimated that between 1999 and 2015, the population of Bornean orangutans has decreased by over 100,000. [2]
Before Bornean and Sumatran orangutans were described as separate species in the early 2000s, orangutans from differing species were paired in captivity, and produced hybrid offspring. In 1985, the Orangutan SSP within the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) issued a moratorium on the breeding of Sumatran x Bornean hybrids. [3]
The Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) is a species of orangutan restricted to South Tapanuli in the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. [3] It is one of three known species of orangutan, alongside the Sumatran orangutan (P. abelii), found farther northwest on the island, and the Bornean orangutan (P. pygmaeus).