Bornean Orangutan - Profile | Facts | Diet | Habitat

(Last Updated On: March 4, 2022)

The Bornean orangutan, scientific name Pongo pygmaeus is a species of orangutan native to the island of Borneo. The phrase “orangutan” comes from “Orang Hutan,” which means “Person of the Forest.”

They are distinctive among the many great apes in that they don’t reside in social teams. In this article, I am going to talk about Bornean orangutan facts, habitat, population, endangered, diet, scientific name, predators, location, lifespan, why are they endangered, etc.

Bornean orangutan profile

Adults usually forage on their very own, however, moms care for their offspring for years. Orangutans have advanced cognitive and spatial skills, which means that they’ve good reminiscences and are excellent problem-solvers.

Orangutans are extremely endangered on account of habitat loss and black-market commerce for infants as pets. There are three species of orangutans: Bornean, Sumatran, Tapanuli (lately found, Tapanuliensis).

Morphologically, the Tapanuli species has differing cranium and enamel construction. They are present in an isolated space of the northern part of the island of Sumatra. There are fewer than 800 people making them among the many most endangered great apes.

Together with the Sumatran orangutan and Tapanuli orangutan, it belongs to the one genus of great apes native to Asia. Like the opposite great apes, orangutans are extremely smart, displaying tool use and distinct cultural patterns within the wild. Orangutans share roughly 97% of their DNA with humans.

The Bornean orangutan is a critically endangered species, with deforestation, palm oil plantations, and searching posing a severe menace to its continued existence.

Bornean orangutan Description

The Bornean orangutan is the second-largest ape after the gorilla, and the most important actually arboreal (or tree-dwelling) animal alive in the present day. Body weights broadly overlap with the significantly taller Homo sapiens, however the latter is significantly more variable in size.

By comparability, the Sumatran orangutan is analogous in size however, on common, is marginally lighter in weight. A survey of untamed orangutans discovered that male Bornean orangutan weighs on common 75 kg (165 lb), starting from 50–100 kg (110–220 lb), and 1.2–1.7 m (3.9–5.6 ft) long; females common 38.5 kg (85 lb), starting from 30–50 kg (66–110 lb), and 1–1.2 m (3.3–3.9 ft) long.

While in captivity, orangutans can develop significantly chubby, as much as more than 165 kg (364 lb). The heaviest identified male orangutan in captivity was an overweight male named “Andy”, who weighed 204 kg (450 lb) in 1959 when he was 13 years old.

The Bornean orangutan has a particular body form with very long arms that will attain as much as 1.5 meters in size. It has gray pores and skin, a rough, shaggy, reddish coat, and prehensile, grasping arms and feet.

Its coat doesn’t cover its face not like most mammals, though Bornean orangutans do have some hair on their faces together with a beard and mustache. It additionally has giant, fatty cheek pads often called flanges in addition to a pendulous throat sac.

Bornean orangutans are extremely sexually dimorphic and have a number of options that differ between women and men. Males have a lot bigger cheek pads, or flanges, which are composed of muscle and huge quantities of fats. In females, the flanges are largely composed of muscle. Males have comparatively bigger canines and premolars.

Males have a more pronounced beard and mustache. The throat sac in males can be significantly bigger. There are two body varieties for sexually mature males: smaller or bigger. Larger males are more dominant however smaller males nonetheless breed efficiently. There is little sexual dimorphism at birth.

Bornean orangutan Geographic Distribution and Habitat

The Bornean orangutan is one in every of solely three species of orangutans; everyone is assessed as a great ape and collectively they’re the one great apes native to Asia.

Inhabiting the equatorial island of Borneo, which is the world’s third-largest island encompassing the international locations of Indonesia (residence to the best inhabitants), Malaysia, and Brunei, Bornean orangutans reside in lowland and hilly tropical and subtropical rainforests at elevations as much as 2,625 feet, or a half-mile (800 meters), above sea level. They make the rainforest cover their residence.

The Bornean orangutan lives in tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forest within the Bornean lowlands, in addition to mountainous areas as much as 1,500 meters (4,900 ft) above sea level. This species lives all through the cover of main and secondary forest and strikes giant distances to seek out bushes bearing fruit.

The first full orangutan skeleton that was found was within the Hoa Binh province in Vietnam and considered from the late Pleistocene epoch. It differed from modern orangutans solely in that its body was proportionately smaller in comparison with its head.

This fossil and others affirm that orangutans as soon as inhabited continental Southeast Asia though at present, Bornean orangutans are solely present in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Bornean orangutan Size, Weight, and Lifespan

As the third-heaviest residing primate, after the eastern and western gorillas, the Bornean orangutan can be the most important arboreal (tree-dwelling) mammal.

In an instance of sexual dimorphism, when vital bodily variations (past sexual organs) distinguish the female and male intercourse of a species, totally grown male Bornean orangutans are a lot bigger than their feminine counterparts

Adult males stand about 3.2 feet tall (97 cm), and weigh between 132 to almost 200 kilos (60 to 90 kg).

Adult females stand about 2.5 feet tall (78 cm), and weigh between 88 and 110 kilos (40 to 50 kg).

In the wild, Bornean orangutans reside 35 to 45 years. Captive Bornean orangutans can reside for 60 years.

Bornean orangutan Behavior and ecology

In history, orangutans ranged all through Southeast Asia and into southern China, in addition to on the island of Java and in southern Sumatra. They primarily inhabit peat swamp forest, tropical heath forest, and blended dipterocarp forest.

Bornean orangutans are more solitary than their Sumatran family members. Two or three orangutans with overlapping territories might work together, however just for brief intervals of time.

Although orangutans usually are not territorial, grownup males will display threatening behaviors upon meeting different males, and solely socialize with females to mate.

Males are thought-about probably the most solitary of the orangutans. The Bornean orangutan has a lifespan of 35–45 years within the wild; in captivity, it might reside to be about 60.

Despite being arboreal, the Bornean orangutan travels on the ground more than its Sumatran counterpart. This could also be partly as a result of no giant terrestrial predators might threaten an orangutan in Borneo. In Sumatra, orangutans should face predation by the fierce Sumatran tiger.

Nesting

The Bornean orangutan reveals nest-building behavior. Nests are constructed to be used at night or throughout the day. Young orangutans are taught by observing their mom’s nest-building behavior. This skill is practiced by juvenile orangutans.

Nests could also be elaborate and contain a basis and mattress made by intertwining leaves and branches and including damaged leafy branches.

Additional options akin to shade, waterproof roof, “pillow”, and “blanket”, all of that are created from branches, twigs, and leaves may be added. Nest-building in primates is taken into account for instance of tool use and never animal structure.

Bornean orangutan Daily Life and Group Dynamics

Two fully-flanged grownup males will do their greatest to keep away from one another. But in the event that they discover themselves vying for the eye of a sexually receptive feminine, these encounters can flip violent.

Male combatants may struggle for a couple of minutes or an hour or longer, inflicting minor to extreme accidents to the opposite. Missing fingers healed scars on their faces and heads, or perhaps a lacking eye is frequent in practically all fully-flanged males.

Fights between flanged males and unflanged males don’t seem like a problem within the wild (in keeping with scientific research that examined their scat to match testosterone ranges in still-developing males to totally flanged males). Fully flanged males probably don’t typically regard the younger males as a menace.

Orangutan females possess a way of decorum and civility. They do not often have interaction in the kind of violent aggression as practiced by combating flanged males, subsequently, their bodies are unmarred by such struggle wounds.

Appearance

A rough, shaggy reddish coat, paying homage to an overcoat plucked from a thrift retailer, covers the body of this extraordinarily long-armed great ape. Bornean orangutans have a attain of 6.5 to eight feet (2 to 2.5 m).

Their dexterous arms and feet enable them to understand tree branches with great agility and skill. Closely-set brown eyes peer out from an expressive, broad naked face that’s black in adults and pinkish across the eyes and muzzle in youthful Bornean orangutans.

Some grownup males sport distinguished mustaches and beards. Ears, palms, and soles of feet are naked of hair.

In one other instance of sexual dimorphism, the faces of totally mature male Bornean orangutans are graced with flanges; that’s, flappy cheek pads that apparently woman Bornean orangutans discover irresistible.

Males with flanges have an added benefit over unflanged males; they possess a repertoire of vocalizations which they emit in long notes (which may carry over a mile), asserting their virility to draw receptive females.

Flanged males are additionally geared up with giant throat sacks and are significantly bigger in total size than unflanged males. These sexually fascinating male accouterments can take as much as 20 years to develop and are related to growing testosterone ranges.

Youngsters sport wiry and unkempt hair, large and soulful eyes, ears you wish to gently tweak, and expressive faces that may soften a curmudgeon’s coronary heart making these little ones the darlings of all great ape infants—together with people!

Bornean orangutan Diet

The Bornean orangutan diet consists of over 400 kinds of meals, together with wild figs, durians (Durio zibethinus and D. graveolens), leaves, seeds, bird eggs, flowers, honey, bugs, and, to a lesser extent than the Sumatran orangutan, bark. They have additionally been identified to eat the internal shoots of crops and vines. They get the necessary portions of water from each fruit and from tree holes.

Bornean orangutans have been sighted utilizing spears to aim (unsuccessfully) to catch fish. The species has been noticed utilizing instruments akin to leaves to wipe off feces, a pad of leaves for holding spiny durian fruit, a leafy branch for a bee swatter, a bunch of leafy branches held collectively as an “umbrella” whereas touring within the rain, a single stick as a backscratcher, and a branch or tree trunk as a missile.

In some areas, orangutans sometimes eat soil to get minerals that will neutralize the toxins and acids they eat of their primarily vegetarian diets. On uncommon events, orangutans will prey upon different, smaller primates, akin to gradual lorises.

Communication

Even although Bornean orangutans are largely solitary, they convey by way of vocalizations, together with a wide range of sounds (just like the long observe of flanged males and in addition deep, throaty grunts to announce the specter of hazard).

In addition, they use gestures, as people do, to point a need or to make a degree. Facial expressions convey unhappiness, pleasure, confusion, levity, worry, and lots of different feelings shared with human primates.

Bornean orangutan Reproduction

Males and females typically come collectively solely to mate. Subadult males (unflanged) will attempt to mate with any feminine and will probably be profitable around half the time.

Dominant flanged males will call and promote their place to receptive females, preferring mating with flanged males. Adult males will typically goal females with weaned infants as mating companions as a result of the feminine is more likely to be fertile.

Females attain sexual maturity and experience their first ovulatory cycle between about six and 11 years of age, though females with more body fats might experience this at an earlier age.

The estrous cycle lasts between 22 and 30 days and menopause has been reported in captive orangutans at about age 48. Females have a tendency to provide beginning at about 14–15 years of age.

Newborn orangutans nurse each three to 4 hours and start to take delicate meals from their moms’ lips by 4 months. During the first year of its life, the younger clings to its mom’s stomach by entwining its fingers in and gripping her fur.

Offspring are weaned at about 4 years, however, this could possibly be for much longer, and shortly after they begin their adolescent stage of exploring, however at all times close by of their mom. During this era, they will even actively search for different younger orangutans to play with and journey with.

On common, juveniles don’t grow to be utterly unbiased till they’re about seven years of age. The beginning fee for orangutans has been reducing largely as a result of an absence of enough vitamins on account of habitat loss.

2011 examine on feminine orangutans in free-ranging rehabilitation packages discovered that people that had been supplemented with meals assets had shorter interbirth intervals, in addition to a lowered age, at first beginning

Bornean orangutan Population

A century ago there have been most likely more than 230,000 orangutans in whole, however, the Bornean orangutan is now estimated at about 104,700 based mostly on the updated geographic range (Endangered) and the Sumatran about 7,500 (Critically Endangered). The 3rd species of orangutan was introduced in November 2017.

Conservation standing

The Bornean orangutan is more frequent than the Sumatran, with about 54,500 people within the wild, whereas about 15,000 Sumatran orangutans are left within the wild.

Orangutans have gotten more and more endangered as a result of habitat destruction and the bushmeat commerce, and younger orangutans are captured to be offered as pets, normally entailing the killing of their moms.

The Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) is now critically endangered, with populations in sharp decline as a result of habitat destruction and unlawful searching, the IUCN declared final week. Bornean orangutans reside solely on the island of Borneo, the place their populations have declined by 60 % since 1950.

The whole variety of Bornean orangutans is estimated to be lower than 14% of what it was within the current previous (from around 10,000 years ago till the center of the 20th century), and this sharp decline has occurred largely over the previous few long time as a result of human activities and improvement. Species distribution is now extremely patchy all through Borneo. Learn the interesting article on are humans monkeys?

Bornean Orangutan – Profile | Facts | Diet | Habitat | Endangered