15 Orangutan Facts That Will Change How You See Great Apes

Orangutans are the only great apes outside Africa, and in many ways the strangest of our close relatives: solitary, slow-living, and astonishingly clever. Here are the facts every wildlife collector should know before logging one.

An orangutan's arm span reaches 2.4 metres, and their hip joints rotate as freely as their shoulders — effectively giving them four hands. They are the largest animals on Earth to live almost entirely in trees, and they build a brand-new sleeping nest of woven branches every single night.

Orangutans use leaves as umbrellas, gloves, and even napkins. Some populations craft tools to extract seeds from spiny fruit, and individuals have been observed planning tomorrow's travel route and announcing it with a long call the evening before.

A mother orangutan nurses and carries her infant for up to eight years — the longest dependency of any wild animal. She will raise perhaps four or five young in her whole life, which is why every individual matters so much to the species' survival.

All three orangutan species are critically endangered, primarily because of habitat loss to palm-oil plantations and fire. Protecting the remaining forest — and supporting responsible wildlife tourism — is the clearest path to keeping the person of the forest in the wild.