Department of Anthropology - University of Toronto

There was a time when great apes thrived over much of mainland and insular Southeast Asia. Today the Orangutan (Genus Pongo) is the last surviving Asian great ape. My research currently focuses on this last remaining Asian ape. Orangutans once had a vast range that spread from China through the Indonesian archipelago to the Islands of Sumatra, Java and Borneo. At the turn of the 20th century an estimated 230, 000 orangutans roamed the island of Borneo, and another 85, 000 roamed the island of Sumatra (Rijksen and Meijaard, 1999) Today, however, there are an estimated 40, 000 orangutans of the species Pongo pygmaeus left on the island of Borneo)and only 7, 500 orangutans (Pongo abeli) on the island of Sumatra (Singleton et al., 2004).