08/19/2026
This World Orangutan Day, meet the “person of the forest!” 🦧🌳
Here are 5 Orangutans facts you probably didn’t know…
1️⃣ Orangutans share about 97% of their DNA with humans, making them one of our closest living relatives.
2️⃣ “Orangutan” means “person of the forest” in Malay and Indonesian.
3️⃣ Orangutans are the largest tree-dwelling mammals on Earth, spending nearly their entire lives in the rainforest canopy.
4️⃣ They build a brand new nest to sleep in every single night, high up in the canopy.
5️⃣ Orangutan mothers wait around 8 years between having young, one of the longest birth intervals of any mammal on Earth. Every individual lost is nearly impossible to replace.
Here’s the part that isn’t so fun: all three orangutan species are now endangered.
Bornean orangutans are listed as Endangered, with current estimates around 75,000-100,000 and falling, while Sumatran orangutans are Critically Endangered at roughly 13,800-14,600 left. The Tapanuli orangutan, the rarest great ape on the planet, is now estimated at only around 650 individuals.
A century ago there were over 230,000 orangutans in total. Today there are roughly 90,000-115,000 left, combined, across all three species, and the biggest driver is habitat loss from deforestation for palm oil and agriculture.
Small choices add up! Support orangutan conservation where you can, look for sustainably certified products, and send this to a friend who loves orangutans as much as we do. 🦧💚
