ORANGUTAN

 ENGLISH TEXT BOOK 21-22

CHAPTER 1 

WHAT AN AMAZING WORLD

ORANGUTAN

In Southeast Asia, there are big apes called orangutans in the Malay language, or the “jungle man.” Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, they are only found on Kalimantan Island and the northern parts of Sumatra Island.

Behaviour

Orangutans mostly live in trees. They travel from tree to tree through the branches using their long limbs. They seldom roam on the ground. As they find it hard going through treetops, each day they only climb a few hundred metres. On the tops of trees, they build a nest. Older males are often found travelling and sleeping on the ground.

Physical Description

Male orangutans can reach a little below 1 m tall and weigh around 77 kg. The females are smaller, only around three-quarter of a meter tall and half the weight of the male. Both male and female orangutans have coarse, long, reddish-brown fur. Appearance-wise, the males are different. Their cheeks are puffy and they have a kind of pouch hanging from their throat, which contains air sacks. These sacks are needed to make loud groans that can be heard from a far distance.

Diet

Orangutans eat mostly fruit, young leaves, inner bark, and eggs. In the dry season, they built up fat reserves to anticipate the monsoon season, which lasts from April through October, when food is much less available.

Mating System and Baby Orangutan

Orangutans like to live alone. They travel and find food on their own and gather only for mating. Female orangutans look for adult males when they are ready to mate. Each pair will stay together until the female is pregnant, which takes a few days. Then they will separate. Like humans, orangutans experience about nine months of pregnancy. One baby is born to a female orangutan every four to eight years. Until they stop breastfeeding at about three years old, infant orangutans remain very dependent on their mothers. Over the next three to five years, they learn to be more independent and are completely independent by the age of eight. Sometimes orangutan mothers pair up for a few days, during which time their infants become playmates.

Dangers

People hunt orangutans continuously, although there is a policy against killing, owning or exporting them. Their natural habitat is fast disappearing due to illegal logging, forest cleaning for palm oil and forest burning. In the 90s, in Sumatra and Kalimantan, thousands of orangutans were killed, and the habitat of thousands more was destroyed in major forest fires. Those fires and killings were threats to the existence of orangutans.