When the Forest Left the Apes

The ancestral habitat study highlights the dependence of today's orangutans on intact rainforests. An international research team around Hervé Bocherens of the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen and his PhD candidate Sophie G. Habinger has reconstructed the habitat of the ancestors of orangutans in present-day Myanmar as part of the collaborative project EVEPRIMASIA between the Universities of Tübingen, Germany, and Poitiers, France. The results of the study, recently published in the journal -Scientific Reports,- highlight the orangutans- dependence on intact forests and the need to protect their remaining refuges and habitats. Unlike other great apes such as gorillas or chimpanzees, orangutans (Pongo) have several known fossil ancestors. Today, orangutans are restricted to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra in Southeast Asia, where they are critically endangered. -Their ancestors- range in the late Miocene, on the other hand, extended over a vast area from Turkey, through easternmost Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Myanmar to Thailand,- reports paleobiologist Sophie Habinger. The study focuses on the orangutan's ancestor Khoratpithecus ayeyarwadyensis , whose fossils were found in the Irrawaddy Formation in modern-day Myanmar, as well as other fossil representatives of the subfamily Ponginae, such as Indopithecus, Sivapithecus, and Gigantopithecus .