orangutans

Genus of Asian apes

Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. They are now found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Classified in the genus Pongo, orangutans were originally considered to be one species. From 1996, they were divided into two species: the Bornean orangutan and the Sumatran orangutan. In 2017, a third species, the Tapanuli orangutan, was definitively identified. The orangutans are the only surviving species of the subfamily Ponginae, which split from the other hominids between 19.3 to 15.7 million years ago.

Back