Related Research Articles
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. From 1996, they were divided into two species: the Bornean orangutan and the Sumatran orangutan. A third species, the Tapanuli orangutan, was identified definitively in 2017. The orangutans are the only surviving species of the subfamily Ponginae, which diverged genetically from the other hominids between 19.3 and 15.7 million years ago.
Primates is an order of mammals, which is further divided into the strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and lorisids; and the haplorhines, which include tarsiers and simians. Primates arose 85–55 million years ago first from small terrestrial mammals, which adapted for life in tropical forests: many primate characteristics represent adaptations to the challenging environment among tree tops, including large brain sizes, binocular vision, color vision, vocalizations, shoulder girdles allowing a large degree of movement in the upper limbs, and opposable thumbs that enable better grasping and dexterity. Primates range in size from Madame Berthe's mouse lemur, which weighs 30 g (1 oz), to the eastern gorilla, weighing over 200 kg (440 lb). There are 376–524 species of living primates, depending on which classification is used. New primate species continue to be discovered: over 25 species were described in the 2000s, 36 in the 2010s, and six in the 2020s.
Perth Zoo is a 17-hectare (41-acre) zoological park in South Perth, Western Australia. The zoo first opened in 1898 and by 2011 housed 1258 animals of 164 species and an extensive botanical collection. It is a full institutional member of the Zoo and Aquarium Association (ZAA) and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA).
Chantek, born at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, was a male hybrid Sumatran/Bornean orangutan who demonstrated a number of intellectual skills, including the use of several signs adapted from American Sign Language (ASL). American anthropologists Lyn Miles and Ann Southcombe worked with Chantek. In 1997, he was transferred to Zoo Atlanta, where he lived for another twenty years.
Human–animal communication is the communication observed between humans and other animals, ranging from non-verbal cues and vocalizations to the use of language.
The Sumatran orangutan 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, and translates as 'person of the forest'.
Ah Meng was a female Sumatran orangutan and a tourism icon of Singapore. Ah Meng was originally from Indonesia and was kept illegally in Singapore as a domestic pet before being recovered by a veterinarian in 1971. She was then eleven years old and was given a home at the Singapore Zoo.
The Bornean orangutan is a species of orangutan endemic to the island of Borneo. Together with the Sumatran orangutan and Tapanuli orangutan, it belongs to the only genus of great apes native to Asia. It is the largest of the three species of orangutans. Like the other great apes, orangutans are highly intelligent, displaying tool use and distinct cultural patterns in the wild. Orangutans share approximately 97% of their DNA with humans. Also called mias by the local population, the Bornean orangutan is a critically endangered species, with deforestation, palm oil plantations, and hunting posing a serious threat to its continued existence.
The fauna of Indonesia is characterised by high levels of biodiversity and endemicity due to its distribution over a vast tropical archipelago. Indonesia divides into two ecological regions; western Indonesia which is more influenced by Asian fauna, and the east which is more influenced by Australasian species.
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, grooming, combat, defence, communication, recreation or 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.
A talking animal or speaking animal is any non-human animal that can produce sounds or gestures resembling those of a human language. Several species or groups of animals have developed forms of communication which superficially resemble verbal language, however, these usually are not considered a language because they lack one or more of the defining characteristics, e.g. grammar, syntax, recursion, and displacement. Researchers have been successful in teaching some animals to make gestures similar to sign language, although whether this should be considered a language has been disputed.
The Hominidae, whose members are known as the great apes or hominids, are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: Pongo ; Gorilla ; Pan ; and Homo, of which only modern humans remain.
Tonda was the oldest orangutan in the United States. Tonda died on March 23, 2009, at ZooWorld in Panama City Beach, Florida, aged 50.
Laughter in animals other than humans describes animal behavior which resembles human laughter.
Certain extant strepsirrhines and hominid apes build nests for both sleeping and raising families. Hominid apes build nests for sleeping at night, and in some species, for sleeping during the day. Nest-building by hominid apes is learned by infants watching the mother and others in the group, and is considered tool use rather than animal architecture. Neither Old World monkeys nor New World monkeys nest.
Animal non-reproductive sexual behavior encompasses sexual activities that non-human animals participate in which do not lead to the reproduction of the species. Although procreation continues to be the primary explanation for sexual behavior in animals, recent observations on animal behavior have given alternative reasons for the engagement in sexual activities by animals. Animals have been observed to engage in sex for social interaction bonding, exchange for significant materials, affection, mentorship pairings, sexual enjoyment, or as demonstration of social rank. Observed non-procreative sexual activities include non-copulatory mounting, oral sex, genital stimulation, anal stimulation, interspecies mating, same-sex sexual interaction, and acts of affection, although it is doubted that they have done this since the beginning of their existence. There have also been observations of sex with cub participants, as well as sex with dead animals.
The Tapanuli orangutan is a species of orangutan restricted to South Tapanuli in the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. It is one of three known species of orangutan, alongside the Sumatran orangutan, found farther northwest on the island, and the Bornean orangutan. It was described as a distinct species in 2017. As of 2018, there are roughly 800 individuals of this species and it is currently on the critically endangered species list.
Melanie R. Bond is an American biologist, primate scientist and author. She was the first woman to serve as a gorilla keeper at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. She authored and co-authored several books on primates and animal keeping, including the Orangutan (Pongo) Care Manual for the Association of Zoos & Aquariums.
In 1964 there was an outbreak of mpox, then known as monkeypox, at Rotterdam Zoo, where two Central/South American giant anteaters were first identified with the disease. Until then, mpox was thought to occur only in primates. Housed in one large enclosure, the monkeypox virus subsequently spread to several orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas, guenons, squirrel monkeys, macaques, marmosets and gibbons.
References
- ↑ "Orangutan". Smithsonian's National Zoo. 2016-06-06. Retrieved 2016-11-05.
- ↑ Wich, S. A.; Swartz, K. B.; Hardus, M. E.; Lameira, A. R.; Stromberg, E.; Shumaker, R. W. (2008). "A case of spontaneous acquisition of a human sound by an orangutan". Primates. 50 (1): 56–64. doi:10.1007/s10329-008-0117-y. PMID 19052691. S2CID 708682.
