"People of the Forest"

The name Orang-utan comes from two Malay words: Orang, meaning "man" or "people", and Hutan, "forest." Thus the name means "People of the forest."
    As recently as 1984 the number of wild orangutans was estimated by some sources to be 150,000 or more. There's question as to whether those estimates are even close to being accurate because of the great difficulty of making a census of such solitary animals living in dense forest. Currently, with more accurate census information, the number of orangutans living in the wild is estimated at 20-27,000 - an alarmingly small number, considering those earlier figures.
    Orangutan diet consists primarily of fruit, with leaves, bark, flowers, insects and birds' eggs being consumed as well. Their habitat ranges from somewhat cooler montane forests to steamy lowland dipterocarp forests. Living in warmer climes requires less fur for warmth than mountain gorillas. And their reddish color makes them very distinctive.

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