Orangutans
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Orangutans
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. In 1996, they were divided into two species: the Bornean orangutan (''P. pygmaeus'', with three subspecies) and the Sumatran orangutan (''P. abelii''); a third species, the Tapanuli orangutan (''P. tapanuliensis''), was identified definitively in 2017. The orangutans are the only surviving members of the subfamily Ponginae, which diverged genetically from the other hominids (gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans) between 19.3 and 15.7 million years ago. The most arboreal of the great apes, orangutans spend most of their time in trees. They have proportionally long arms and short legs, and have reddish-brown hair covering their bodies. Adult males weigh about , while females we ...
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Bornean Orangutan
The Bornean orangutan (''Pongo pygmaeus'') is an orangutan species endemic to the island of Borneo. It belongs to the only genus of great apes native to Asia and is the largest of the three ''Pongo'' species. It has a coarse, reddish coat and up to long arms. It is sexually dimorphic — males are larger than females and develop large cheek pads (flanges), for example. The Bornean orangutan inhabits Borneo lowland rain forests and Borneo montane rain forests up to an elevation of . Its diet includes fruits, seeds, flowers, bird eggs, sap and vines. It is highly intelligent, displaying tool use and distinct cultural patterns. It is critically endangered, with deforestation, palm oil plantations, and hunting posing a serious threat to its survival. Taxonomy The Bornean orangutan and the Sumatran orangutan diverged about 400,000 years ago, with a continued low level of gene flow between them since then. The two orangutan species were considered merely subspecies until 1996; they ...
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Sumatran Orangutan
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. Its common name is based on two separate local words, ''orang'' 'people; person' and ''hutan'' 'forest', derived from Malay language, Malay, and translates as 'person of the forest'. Description Male Sumatran orangutans grow to about tall and , while females are smaller, averaging and . Compared to the Bornean species, Sumatran orangutans are thinner and have longer faces; their hair is longer and has a paler red color. Evolution Fossil orangutans in Sumatra from the Pleistocene had similar diets to present day Sumatran orangutans, consisting mainly of soft fruit as evidenced by dental microwear. Behaviour and ecology Compared with the Bornean orangutan, the Sumatran orangutan ...
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Tool Use By Animals
Tool use by non-humans is a phenomenon in which a non-human animal uses any kind of tool in order to achieve a goal such as acquiring food and water, Personal grooming, grooming, combat, defence, Animal communication, communication, Play (activity), recreation or animal architecture, construction. Originally thought to be a skill possessed only by humans, some tool use requires a sophisticated level of cognition. There is considerable discussion about the definition of what constitutes a tool and therefore which behaviours can be considered true examples of tool use. A wide range of animals, including mammals, birds, fish, cephalopods, and insects, are considered to use tools. Primates are well known for using tools for hunting or gathering food and water, cover for rain, and self-defence. Chimpanzees have often been the object of study in regard to their usage of tools, most famously by Jane Goodall, since these animals are frequently kept in captivity and are closely related t ...
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Hominidae
The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic Family (biology), family of primates that includes eight Neontology#Extant taxa versus extinct taxa, extant species in four Genus, genera: ''Orangutan, Pongo'' (the Bornean orangutan, Bornean, Sumatran orangutan, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the Eastern gorilla, eastern and western gorilla); ''Pan (genus), Pan'' (the chimpanzee and the bonobo); and ''Homo'', of which only Human, modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') remain. Numerous revisions in classifying the great apes have caused the use of the term ''hominid'' to change over time. The original meaning of "hominid" referred only to humans (''Homo'') and their closest extinct relatives. However, by the 1990s humans and other apes were considered to be "hominids". The earlier restrictive meaning has now been largely assumed by the term ''Hominini, hominin'', which comprises all members of the human clade after the split ...
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Birutė Galdikas
Birutė Marija Filomena Galdikas or Birutė Mary Galdikas, OC (born 10 May 1946), is a Lithuanian-Canadian anthropologist, primatologist, conservationist, ethologist, and author. She is a professor at Simon Fraser University. In the field of primatology, Galdikas is recognized as a leading authority on orangutans. Prior to her field study of orangutans, scientists knew little about the species. Early life Galdikas was born on 10 May 1946 in Wiesbaden, West Germany. Her parents, Antanas and Filomena Galdikas, were Lithuanian refugees fleeing the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states following World War II. When Galdikas was two years old, the family moved to Canada in 1948, when her father signed a contract to work in copper mining in Quebec. The following year, they relocated to Toronto, where Galdikas grew up. Her father worked as a miner and a contractor. As a young child, Birutė's head was filled with visions of far-off forests and exotic creatures. The first book she ...
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Primate
Primates is an order (biology), order of mammals, which is further divided into the Strepsirrhini, strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and Lorisidae, lorisids; and the Haplorhini, haplorhines, which include Tarsiiformes, tarsiers and simians (monkeys and apes). Primates arose 74–63 million years ago first from small terrestrial animal, terrestrial mammals, which adapted for life in tropical forests: many primate characteristics represent adaptations to the challenging environment among Canopy (biology), tree tops, including large brain sizes, binocular vision, color vision, Animal communication, vocalizations, shoulder girdles allowing a large degree of movement in the upper limbs, and opposable thumbs (in most but not all) that enable better grasping and dexterity. Primates range in size from Madame Berthe's mouse lemur, which weighs , to the eastern gorilla, weighing over . There are 376–524 species of living primates, depending on which classification is ...
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Ponginae
Ponginae , also known as the Asian hominids, is a subfamily in the family (biology), family Hominidae. Once a diverse lineage of Eurasian apes, the subfamily has only one Neontology, extant genus, ''Pongo (genus), Pongo'' (orangutans), which contains three extant species; the Sumatran orangutan (''Pongo abelii''), the Tapanuli orangutan (''Pongo tapanuliensis'') and the Bornean orangutan (''Pongo pygmaeus''). All three species are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Evolutionary history The first pongine genera appear in the Miocene, ''Sivapithecus'' and ''Khoratpithecus'', six or seven million years before evidence of orangutans was found from Pleistocene southeast Asia and southern China. Ponginae may also include the genera ''Lufengpithecus'', ''Ankarapithecus'', and ''Gigantopithecus''. However, phylogenetic analysis in 2004, which originally found ''Lufengpithecus'' and ''Ankarapithecus'' to be most closely related to ...
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Gorilla
Gorillas are primarily herbivorous, terrestrial great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or five subspecies. The DNA of gorillas is highly similar to that of humans, from 96 to 99% depending on what is included, and they are the next closest living relatives to humans after the chimpanzees. Gorillas are the largest living primates, reaching heights between , weights between , and arm spans up to , depending on species and sex. They tend to live in troops, with the leader being called a silverback. The eastern gorilla is distinguished from the western by darker fur colour and some other minor morphological differences. Gorillas tend to live 35–40 years in the wild. Gorillas' natural habitats cover tropical or subtropical forest in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although their range covers a small percentage of Sub-Saharan Africa, gorillas c ...
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Pongo Weidenreichi
The Chinese orangutan (''Pongo weidenreichi'') is an extinct species of orangutan from the Pleistocene of South China and possibly Southeast Asia. It is known from fossil teeth found in the Sanhe Cave, and Baikong, Juyuan and Queque Caves in Chongzuo, Guangxi. Its dental dimensions are 20% bigger than those of living orangutans. The youngest remains of the species date to between 66,000-57,000 years ago in Yincun Cave, Guangxi. An isolated canine from Thẩm Khuyên Cave, Vietnam, and a fourth premolar from Pha Bong, Thailand, could possibly be assigned to ''Gigantopithecus'', though these could also represent ''Pongo weidenreichi''. Two possible teeth previously attributed to ''Gigantopithecus ''Gigantopithecus'' ( ) is an extinct genus of ape that lived in southern China from 2 million to approximately 300,000–200,000 years ago during the Early Pleistocene, Early to Middle Pleistocene, represented by one species, ''Gigantopithecus ...'' from the Late Pleistocene deposi ...
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Pan (genus)
The genus ''Pan'' consists of two extant species: the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Taxonomically, these two ape species are collectively termed panins; however, both species are more commonly referred to collectively using the generalized term chimpanzees, or chimps. Together with humans, gorillas, and orangutans, they are part of the family Hominidae (the great apes, or ''hominids''). Native to sub-Saharan Africa, chimpanzees and bonobos are currently both found in the Congo jungle, while only the chimpanzee is also found further north in West Africa. Both species are listed as endangered species, endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and in 2017 the Convention on Migratory Species selected the chimpanzee for special protection. Chimpanzee and bonobo: comparison The chimpanzee (''P. troglodytes''), which lives north of the Congo River, and the bonobo (''P. paniscus''), which lives south of it, were once considered to be the same species, but since 1928 they h ...
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Pongo Hooijeri
''Pongo hooijeri'' is an extinct species of orangutan from the Pleistocene of Vietnam. It was named in honor of paleontologist Dirk Albert Hooijer. Fossils of the ape were found in the Tham Hai Cave. Description ''Pongo hooijeri'' is only known from isolated teeth. In its initial description, it was distinguished from other orangutan species by its generally larger tooth size than living orangutans, as well as a number of morphological characters of the teeth, differing from ''Pongo pygmaeus'' "in lacking significant crenelation on the occlusal surfaces of the molars and upper premolars, and on the basins of the lower premolars. Incisors are not known. Molar cusp disposition similar to that of ''P. pygmaeus'', but the cusps themselves are puffier and more rounded occlusally as well as on their external slopes. The occlusal surfaces are thus more poorly defined, and the occlusal basins are more constricted." Taxonomy Harrison et al. 2014 argued that the species should be c ...
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Poaching
Poaching is the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights. Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets. It was set against the hunting privileges of nobility and territorial rulers. Since the 1980s, the term "poaching" has also been used to refer to the illegal harvesting of wild plants. In agricultural terms, the term 'poaching' is also applied to the loss of soils or grass by the damaging action of feet of livestock, which can affect availability of productive land, water pollution through increased runoff and welfare issues for cattle. Stealing livestock, as in cattle raiding, classifies as theft rather than poaching. The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 15 enshrines the sustainable use of all wildlife. It targets the taking of action on dealing with poaching and trafficking of protected species of flora and fauna to ensure their availability for present ...
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