Orangutan

The word orangutan means "man of the forest" in the Malay language. The number of orangutan is decreasing, they are endangered mostly because of the deforestation.

Living place : Orangutans are the only great ape who live in Asia. They are native to Indonesia and Malaysia and live in tropical rain forests in the island of Sumatra and Borneo. Orangutans are the most arboreal of great apes, they spend nearly all of their time in trees.

Physical description : They have long and strong arms, twice as long as their legs, and swing from branch to branch with them. An adult male weights 50 - 90kg and grows to about 1,2 - 1,5 m ; an adult female weights 30 - 40 kg and stands aroud 1,1 m.
Orangutans are covered by long reddish-brown hair and they have a large head.

Behaviour : Orangutans are solitary animals. They live alone in large territories and communicate by screaming loudly.

Life span and reproduction : The life span of Orangutans is about 50 years in captivity but in the wild, the life span is only about 30 - 45 years. Orangutans, like humans, don't have a specific season for the reproduction. They are able to reproduce when they are 7 to 10 years old. Females are pregnant for 8.5 to 9 months and give birth to a single baby. The male and female orangutan stay together for only a few days.

Diet : Orangutans are omnivores but mostly herbivorous. Their favorite food are fruits, who represent 65% of their diet. They also eat insects, small animals, flowers, leaves ...

More informations : They are known for their intelligence and for using found objects as tools.

Bonobo

Living place: Around 10 000 Bonobos are only found around the Congo river, in the democratic republic of the Congo, living in the humid forests.

Physical description: Bonobo male weighs 40kg and stands around 85 cm. Bonobo female weighs 30 kg and average 78 cm.

Diet: Fruit is central to the diets. But Bonobo also eats nuts, seeds, young leaves, and insects.

Lifespan and reproduction: Female are able to give birth by age 11 or 12 and male turns sexually mature at 15 years old. The gestation period lasts 228 days and the female has one child.

Longevity: Bonobo lives older than 40 years in the wild and close to 60 in captivity.

Group life: Bonobo lives in troops of 20 to 50 animals. They aren't agressiv one another unlike chimpanzees. Bonobo 's group is seen as an egalitarian society in which males do not automatically outrank females in the group. On the contrary, their life is based on a matriarcal system in which male keeps staying with their mother during his entire life, and the female has to join another group when she reachs puberty.Sex is a social motor in group life, by easing tensions and creating alliances.

More informations: Bonobo is the smalest Great Apes. Humans and Bonobos share between 99 and 99.6% of their genetic makeup.

source: http://pen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo - 113k

Chimpanzee

Family : Panina

Genus : Pan

Chimpanzee is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan : The better known chimpanzee is Pan troglodytes living in west and central Africa. The second specie is Pan paniscus, living in the forest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Diet:

Chimpanzees are omnivore therefore they mainly eat fruits, insects, honey but also some kind of birds and little mammals.

Physical description:

An adult male chimpanzee can weigh from 35-70 kilograms and stand about 1 metre tall, while females usually weigh 26-50 kg and stand at the most 1 metre.

They are black-haired apes with a pale rose face which distinguish them from Bonobos, gorillas and orangutans.

Habitat:

Chimpanzees mainly live in a forest environment in which trees turn into a protection against predators (particularly humans). However during their all life chimpanzees move but always among a restricted area. They form communities of more or less 100 individuals including a dominant male.

Apart from humans, the main predator representing a real danger for chimpanzee is snake.

They rarely live past the age of 40 in the wild but in captivity they are able to reach more than 60.

Abilities:

Chimpanzees aren't able to swim.

They use tools made with branches and stones. This last characteristic bring Humans and chimpanzees together.

Many scientist are working in laboratory with chimpanzees which developed real abilities to learn various languages.

Character:

....

Reproduction:
Female chimpanzee is viviparous.

Gorilla

Family: Pongidae
Genus: Gorilla

Gorillas are divided into two species, each one divided into four subspecies:
Western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla) :
-Western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla)
-Cross river gorilla (Gorilla beringei dielhi)
Eastern gorilla (Gorilla beringei):
-Mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei)
-Eastern lowland gorilla ( Gorilla beringei graueri)

Living place:
Western Africa: Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic (about 40,000 and 80,000 western lowland gorillas
Southern nigeria (about 250 cross river gorillas)
Eastern Africa: eastern Democratic Republic of Congo(12,000 eastern lowland gorillas)
Bwindi forest, Ouganda (about 600 mountain gorillas)

Habitat: Gorilla live in tropical or subtropical forests . Lowland Gorillas live in dense forests and lowland swamps and marshes whereas mountain gorilla inhabits the forests situated in altitude from 2225 to 4267 m.

Physical description: Gorilla walks on his knuckle. Gorilla males can reach 1.70 height on average and weigh from 140 to 200 kg.
As for Gorilla females, they are around 1,40 tall and weigh 100 kg.
Their coat depends on age and sex, even though adults have a clearly silver back.

Diet: Gorillas are folivores and eat especially leaves and vegetative matter, although they also eat smaller amounts of fruits, roots and insects. However lowland gorillas are foli-frugivores and eat more fruit, and more insects, than mountain gorillas. Gorilla spends most of his time eating.

Lifespan and reproduction: In general, their lifespan is between 35-50 years. Gestation lasts 8 and a half months and the children keep leaving with their mother until 3-4 years old. During her life, each female gives birth to 6 or 8 babies. Gorilla becomes adult when he is 12.

Group life: The most important figure in a group is the silverback. This adult male gorilla is the group leader and so, he is the one who takes all the decisions. What's more, he establishs a harem which he keeps all along his life. As female gorilla reachs adult age, she splits up with the group to find an other one.

More informations: Gorilla spends more time on earth than the other Great Apes. He often builds his nest on the floor.
We estimate that only 110 000 gorillas are still alive.
Thanks to specialist's work, some gorillas have developped a mean to communicate with human being: for instance koko who has learned sign language for 25 years.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla - 93k

Great Apes through the world

We can see on this map that Great Apes are only present in a small part of the world.

There are around 65,000 Orangutans living on the planet. Between 45,000 and 69,000 live in Borneo, the third largest island on the world located between the south China sea and the Java sea and 6000 live in Sumatra, a large island of Indonesia.

Around 10,000 Bonobos live in the humid forests of the Democratic Republic Of Congo of central Africa.

We can find 12,000 Chimpanzees in West Africa, 83,000 in Central Africa and 13,000 in the East of Africa. Chimpanzee is the Great Apes including the most of individuals.

To finish, 120,000 Gorillas live in Western Africa and 12,000 Gorillas live in Eastern Africa.

Phylogenetic tree

This is the phylogenetic tree which remembers the parenty degrees between hominoid family, including our own specie.

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