Orangutans
Modern Orangutans have become very scarce since they originated nearly 2 million years ago and are now facing extinction. In fact, the Honolulu Zoo (online) reported some interesting facts about orangutans. They stated that “at the turn of the last century around 315,000 orangutans existed in the wild” and that “Orangutan numbers are now down by 92% compared with a century ago and have been reduced by half in Northern Sumatra between 1993 and 2000 (“Orangutan”, par. 2).”
Orangutans happen to be very intelligent and have the ability to think and reason. They have been found to be “our closest relatives, sharing 97% of the same DNA as humans (“Orangutan Facts”, par. 1).” In fact, this ape is known as “Orang Hutan” by the Indigenous peoples of Indonesia and Malaysia, which is literally translated to mean “People of the Forest” in English. In the past they would not even kill them because they thought of them as just “a person hiding in the trees, trying to avoid having to go to work or become a slave (“Orangutan Facts”, par. 1).”
Orangutans are very unique animals. Their hair color ranges from bright orange when they are young to dark brown in some adults. They have really long arms, and legs that are 30% shorter than their arms. They also have opposable thumbs. Their feet are designed very much like their hands so that they are able to climb trees and other things much easier. They also have very flexible hips for holding on to branches and vines in any direction. However, they are at a disadvantage on ground because their walking is a bit slow and awkward. Male orangutans have a laryngeal (throat) sac, which is used to emit a very loud noise, called the “Long Call”, that echoes throughout the forest. The “Long Call” is used to locate and announce their presence to females or to warn off other males. “Males often weigh over 200 pounds, where females are 1/3 to Ã?½ his size (“Orangutan Facts”, par. 14).”
“The Orangutan is the only strictly arboreal ape and is actually the largest tree living mammal in the world (“Orangutan Facts”, par. 3).” Since they move very slow when on the ground, they are very susceptible to predators like tigers and leopards. They make their home in the trees building nests to sleep in out of leaves and branches. The orangutan has very little need to come down from the trees because of their arboreal lifestyle.
Since the orangutan has a large body with a very large appetite, and food is scarce, the rain forest’s population density is pretty low at about 2.6 animals per sq. mile. However, near the swamp forests, the population density is more like 18/sq. mile. “Orangutans will spend at least 60% of their daylight hours eating and searching for food. They eat over 300 different kinds of fruit,âÂ?¦. About 60% of their diet is fruit (“Orangutan”, par. 20).” They also add to their diet bark, insects, young shoots, and sometimes a bird egg or small vertebrate. Almost all of their food grow in trees and they get their drinking water from the frequent rains that fill the leaves. The mother orangutan has to teach her baby to find food; she has to show them what food to eat, and where and when to find them.
The life-span of an orangutan is about 35-40 years in the wild, while the ones in captivity live to be about 50 years old, sometimes older. Since they are not only slow-moving, but slow-growing, they down have very many babies. There is an average of eight years in between each birth, so they only have about four or five babies in their lifetime. Their babies will nurse until they are about six years of age. Although the males may stick around for a few more years, the females tend to stick around until they are in their teens so that they can observe the way their mother raises their siblings and gain some mothering skills. The infant mortality rate is very low in the wild. The gestation period is between 230-270 days and the baby orangutan weighs about 3 �½ pounds. By the age of 10-12, they become completely independent of their mothers.
The Orangutan comes from Asia, and were found much throughout Southeast Asia. However, due to hunting and deforestation, they have become extinct from many areas and can now be found on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Although there are many similarities between the orangutan that I observed, Daisy, and the ones in the wild (they are, after all, both orangutans), there are a few differences between the two that I found during the two hours that I observed. For instance, the amount of time that it takes for them to eat is different. Daisy spent 12.5% of the time that I observed her eating, while orangutans in the wild have been known to spend 60% of their daylight hours eating and searching for food. Daisy spends far less time on this activity because she does not have to go and search for her food since it is given to her, while the orangutans in the wild do have to search for their food, which takes a while since they move very slow. Another difference is that Daisy was taught, by humans, to do things that orangutans in the wild can’t do, like painting. It’s very similar to humans in that if you send them to school (or home school), they learn a lot more than they would had they not gone to school. Also, Daisy seemed to socialize very well with the people around her, while some orangutans in the wild have been known to enjoy being by themselves. This is mainly because in the wild the food is so scarce. However, in the swamp forests, where there is more food, the orangutans socialize a little more.
I learned a lot about orangutans while doing this project. I learned that they are highly intelligent creatures, and that they can paint pictures ?. However, their are things that I would like to know more about in order to better understand orangutans. For instance, Why do they nurse their children for so long (Six years is a very long time to nurse a child)? Do all of their children look alike, and can they tell their children apart? Overall, I enjoyed doing this project.
