Physical Description
The Bornean orangutan is the third-heaviest living primate after the two species of gorilla, and the largest truly arboreal (or tree-dwelling) animal alive today. Body weights broadly overlap with the considerably taller Homo sapiens, but that species, of course, is more variable in size. The Sumatran orangutan is similar in size, but is on average marginally lighter in weight. A survey of wild orangutans found that males weigh on average 75 kg (170 lb), ranging from 50–100 kg (110–220 lb), and 1.2–1.4 m (3.9–4.6 ft) long; females average 38.5 kg (85 lb), ranging from 30–50 kg (66–110 lb), and 1–1.2 m (3.3–3.9 ft) long. While in captivity, orangutans can grow considerably overweight, up to more than 165 kg (360 lb). The heaviest known male orangutan in captivity was an obese male named "Andy", who weighed 204 kg (450 lb) in 1959 when he was 13 years old.
The Bornean orangutan has a distinctive body shape with very long arms that may reach up to two metres in length. It has a coarse, shaggy, reddish coat and prehensile, grasping hands and feet.
Read more about this topic: Bornean Orangutan
Famous quotes containing the words physical and/or description:
“The most striking aspect of linguistic competence is what we may call the ‘creativity of language,’ that is, the speaker’s ability to produce new sentences, sentences that are immediately understood by other speakers although they bear no physical resemblance to sentences which are ‘familiar.’”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)