The critically endangered orangutan – one of humankind’s closest living relatives – has become a symbol of wild nature’s vulnerability in the face of human actions and an icon of rainforest conservation.
New research published in the journal Science Advances, led by Dr Stephanie Spehar at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and includes Dr Julien Louys from Griffith University’s Australian Research Center for Human Evolution, indicates this view overlooks how humans, over thousands of years, fundamentally shaped the orangutan known today.
Ignoring this obscures understanding of orangutans and impacts conservation efforts, said lead author Stephanie Spehar, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
An orangutan tooth fossil. Credit: Gilbert Price
“It was often assumed that environmental factors like changes in fruit availability were responsible for most features of modern-day orangutans, such as the fact that they usually live at low densities and have a restricted geographic distribution,” Dr Spehar said.
“However, the