“Orangutans share about 97 percent of their DNA with humans.”
Bornean orangutans are Critically Endangered great apes of Borneo's rainforests. They build a new tree nest most nights, eat mostly fruit, and remain dependent on their mothers for years.
By An Nguyen · Published · Updated
Pongo pygmaeus Primates Hominidae
Measured against the 176 species profiled on this site. Each figure is converted to one unit system from the published range on the page, so the ranks are computed, not quoted.
| Measure | This species | Rank here | Exceeds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Body mass | 99.8 kg | #49 of 176#37 of 90 Mammalia | 73% |
| Body length | 1.37 m | #77 of 176#49 of 90 Mammalia | 56% |
| Lifespan in the wild | 45 yr | #26 of 169#13 of 85 Mammalia | 85% |
Closest in body mass
Ranks use the upper end of each published adult range, so they compare typical large adults rather than records, and metrics with no published number are left out rather than estimated. The full table is downloadable from the species dataset, and any two species can be put side by side in the comparison tool.
Browse photographs of bornean orangutan across habitat, behavior, anatomy, and life stages.
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Core article
A closer look at habitat, diet, behavior, reproduction, and conservation.
The Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) is a great ape and a keystone species of Southeast Asia's rainforests — its name comes from the Malay "orang hutan," or "person of the forest." These reddish-orange primates spend much of their lives in the canopy, use tools, solve foraging problems, remember the locations of fruiting trees, and have a long period of juvenile dependence. The species is critically threatened by forest loss.
The Bornean orangutan is the largest predominantly arboreal mammal and is strongly dimorphic: adult males reach 4.5 feet and 220 pounds, while females weigh about 80 pounds. Mature males develop fleshy cheek pads (flanges) and a throat sac that projects deep, resonant "long calls." Arms can span more than 7 feet, and flexible shoulders, hips, and ankles support movement among branches. Hook-like hands and feet — four long curved digits with short, opposable thumbs and big toes — support the body as the ape uses "quadrumanous scrambling," spreading its mass across several branches. It belongs to the great-ape family Hominidae; genus Pongo contains three species (Bornean, Sumatran, and Tapanuli), which share about 97% of their DNA with humans.
The Bornean orangutan is endemic to the island of Borneo, split across Indonesian Kalimantan and Malaysian Sabah and Sarawak. It is an obligate resident of lowland dipterocarp rainforest and peat swamp forest, needing the vertical structure and dense canopy of primary and mature secondary forest, and it rarely goes above about 500 meters, where cooler montane forest lacks the fruit density its calories demand. Borneo's proboscis monkey shares parts of the island but sticks to riverine, mangrove, and swamp forest, while the ring-tailed lemur is another island primate from an entirely different lineage.
Orangutans are mainly fruit-eating omnivores, spending up to 60% of their foraging time finding and eating ripe fruit. Strong jaws and broad, flat molars can crush hard-shelled fruits and seeds. The diet tracks forest fruiting cycles — including figs, lychees, mangosteens, and lipid-rich fruits during masting events — and when preferred fruit is scarce they turn to young leaves, shoots, bark, lianas, orchids, mineral-rich soil, termites, ants, and honey. They remember the locations and fruiting schedules of many trees across a large home range.
Unlike the troop-living gorillas and chimpanzees, the Bornean orangutan is semi-solitary — the scattered fruit of the Bornean forest simply can't support big aggregations of giant apes without fierce competition. Flanged males are largely solitary and use resonant long calls to advertise to females and warn off rivals, and direct male encounters are uncommon but can turn to serious fights. The clearest sign of their intelligence is nightly nest-building: each evening an orangutan bends and weaves leafy branches high in the canopy into a sturdy sleeping platform, sometimes adding a leaf "roof" against rain, and they routinely fashion and use tools — leafy branches as umbrellas, sticks to pry seeds from spiny fruit.
Orangutans have one of the slowest reproductive rates and longest childhoods of any land mammal. After an 8.5-month gestation a female bears a single, helpless infant that depends on her for constant contact and warmth, nursing for up to six years. More critically, the juvenile stays dependent for up to eight years, learning from its mother how to identify hundreds of edible plants, navigate the canopy, build nests, and process toxic or armored foods. Females mature around 15 and produce a calf only once every 6 to 8 years, so a population can take decades to recover from even small losses. Wild Bornean orangutans live 35 to 45 years.
The Bornean orangutan is Critically Endangered and fragmented across isolated forest patches; WWF reports an estimated population of about 104,700 rather than a live census. The primary driver is industrial destruction of lowland rainforest — millions of hectares of ancient peat swamp and dipterocarp forest logged, drained, and burned for monoculture plantations, above all palm oil — worsened by recurring forest fires set for clearing and amplified by El Niño droughts. As habitat contracts, starving apes raid crops and are shot as pests, and despite protection females are poached so their dependent infants can be sold into the illegal pet trade. Averting extinction demands halting illegal logging, shifting to certified sustainable palm oil, and protecting remaining primary-forest corridors. Orangutans and chimpanzees are both great apes but differ sharply in locomotion, grouping, and tool use — a comparison that separates family traits from adaptations to arboreal life.
Orangutans share about 97 percent of their DNA with humans.
The word orangutan means person of the forest in Malay.
Orangutans build a fresh leafy nest to sleep in almost every night.
A male orangutan's arm span can reach more than 7 feet.
Orangutans are mostly solitary, unlike chimpanzees and gorillas.
Infants stay with their mothers for up to eight years.
Select a question to reveal the answer.
Bornean orangutans live only on the island of Borneo in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Orangutans eat fruit, leaves, bark, flowers, and sometimes insects. Fruit is an important food when trees are fruiting.
Yes. Bornean orangutans are listed as Critically Endangered because rainforests are being cleared for palm oil and logging.
Orangutans are great apes and are closely related to humans, gorillas, and chimpanzees.
Orangutans build leafy nests in trees to sleep safely above the forest floor each night.
Adult orangutans usually live alone, though mothers stay with their infants for many years.
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