AnimalsOrangutans are large red-haired apes that live in trees. The name means "person of the forest" in Malay. They are mostly solitary, and a mother looks after each young for many years, longer than almost any other animal.
Quick facts
- Scientific name
- Pongo pygmaeus
- Group
- Mammals
- Diet
- Herbivore (eats plants)
- Lives in
- Borneo
- Habitat
- Rainforest
- A young one is called
- infant
- A group is called
- no special name
- Conservation status
- Critically Endangered
How it is classified
Scientists sort living things into groups within groups. Reading down, each step is a smaller group, ending with the species itself.
- Kingdom Animalia
- Phylum Chordata
- Class Mammalia
- Order Primates
- Family Hominidae
- Genus Pongo
- Species Pongo pygmaeus
Other members of the family Hominidae on this site: chimpanzee, Western gorilla.
More distant relatives in the order Primates: northern plains gray langur, rhesus macaque, ring-tailed lemur.
Classification follows the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Other reference works arrange some groups differently. How classification works.
Is it in danger?
The Bornean orangutan is listed as Critically Endangered. The species faces an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. This is the last category before "extinct in the wild".
This is the IUCN Red List category as recorded in Wikidata on 11 November 2026. The IUCN Red List itself is the authority and may carry a newer assessment. What the categories mean.