Project Description
The orangutans are the two exclusively Asian species of extant great apes.
Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, orangutans are currently found in only the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra.
Classified in the genus Pongo, orangutans were considered to be one species.
However, since 1996, they have been divided into two species: the Bornean orangutan (P. pygmaeus) and the Sumatran orangutan (P. abelii).
Both extant species had their genomes sequenced and they appear to have diverged around 400,000 years ago.
Orangutans diverged from the rest of the great apes 15.7 to 19.3 million years ago (mya).
