If you haven’t heard yet, the most popular native of Borneo is the Orangutan. The Bornean Orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus, is a species of Orangutan native to the island of Borneo. Together with the slightly smaller Sumatran Orangutan, it belongs to the only genus of great apes native to Asia.
The Bornean Orangutan has a life span of about 35 to 40 years in the wild; in captivity it can live to be 60. A survey of wild Orangutans found that males are typically 75 kg (165 lb) and 1.2-1.4 m (4-4.7 ft) long; females averaging 38.5 kg (82 lb) and 1-1.2 m (3.3-4 ft) long
There is evidence that there was gene flow between the geographically isolated Bornean Orangutan populations until recently. The Bornean and Sumatran Orangutan species diverged 1.5 – 1.7 million years ago. This occurred well before the two islands (Borneo and Sumatra) separated. The two species of Orangutan are more distantly related than the Common Chimpanzee and the Bonobo. Despite the difference, the two Orangutan species were only considered subspecies until as recently as 1996, following sequencing of mtDNA..
Watch how these orphaned Orangutans being taught to climb, and then go to a platform where you can witness them coming in from within the forest for their daily meals of milk and bananas.
