Orangutan

This post is not about Reba McIntire either

An orangutan is pretty easy to pick out of a primate line up thanks mostly to it's signature coat of reddish hair. In fact, it is the only ginger member of the great apes aside from Bill Walton. One would think that an orangutan's fiery colored hair played a part in its naming. One would be wrong though. Stupid one! The name "orangutan" is made up of two Malay words that together mean "person of the forest." In American we call them vagrants.

Male orangutans have these weird cheek flaps that grow larger and larger as they age. These cheek flaps are a sign of dominance amongst males and show females they are ready to mate. They also give the orangutan a look like it has just been pinched by some kind of insane demonic aunt.

Orangutans are special for a number of other reasons as well! They are the largest tree-dwellers in the world. Over 90% of their day is spent up in the branches. Their incredibly long armspan, up to 8ft in some cases, enables them to comfortably traverse the canopies of the Southeast Asian jungles with little difficulty, and pick fruit which makes up the bulk of their diet. When they do come down to the earth, orangutans do not walk on their knuckles like chimps and gorillas, but instead on their  palms or fists. This gives them the awesome sounding title of "fist-walker" which coincidentally is the name of the main character in an action-adventure script I am trying to sell to Hollywood. Look for "Fist Walker and the Dragon's Armoire" to hit theaters some time in the summer of 14.

There are two types of Orangutans in this world, the Bornean, and the Sumatran. It saddens me to report that both are endangered, the Sumatran orangutan critically so. Years ago, orangutans populated much of Southeast Asia and were even spotted in China. However, now you will only find these red-headed intelligistas the rain forest on the island of Borneo and the northern part of Sumatra.  It is estimated that under 7,000 Sumatran orangutans are left in the wild.

A series of tubes you say?

If you'd like to learn more about Orangutans you can check out the two places I pilfered this wealth of info from.

The Orangutan Foundation International
And the always reliable Wikipedia