ORANGUTANS

The orangutan genus, Pongo, includes three species and three subspecies.

Pongo pygmaeus

CONSERVATION STATUS: CRITICALLY ENDANGERED

The Bornean orangutan is one of three orangutan species; each is classified as a great ape and they are the only great apes native to Asia. Inhabiting equatorial Borneo, the world’s third-largest island, encompassing the countries of Indonesia (home to the species’ greatest population), Malaysia, and Brunei, Bornean orangutans live in lowland and hilly tropical and subtropical rainforests at elevations up to 2,625 feet, or a half-mile (800 m), above sea level. They make the rainforest…

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Pongo abelii

CONSERVATION STATUS: CRITICALLY ENDANGERED

The Sumatran orangutan is endemic to the northern portion of the island of Sumatra, in Indonesia. A species is endemic to an area when it is found naturally nowhere else in the world. Most Sumatran orangutans, about 82% of them, live in Aceh Province in Indonesia, with the remaining populations in North Sumatra…

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Photo Credit: Tim Laman/Creative Commons​

Pongo tapanuliensis

CONSERVATION STATUS: CRITICALLY ENDANGERED

Everything we know about the Tapanuli orangutan is limited to a single population remaining on the island of Sumatra, in a region called Batang Toru, south of Lake Toba. Less than 800 Tapanuli orangutans live here, restricted to the fragmented rainforests of this region’s uplands. Before this small population was discovered in...

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