page_title: Orangutan
section_title: In captivity
hierarchical_section_title: Orangutan / Orangutans and humans / In captivity
caption_attribution_description: English: The Female Orang - Utan
context_page_description: Orangutans are great apes native to Indonesia and Malaysia. They are found in the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Classified in the genus Pongo, orangutans were originally considered to be one species. From 1996, they were divided into two species: the Bornean orangutan and the Sumatran orangutan. In 2017, a third species, the Tapanuli orangutan, was identified. The orangutans are the only surviving species of the subfamily Ponginae, who split from humans, chimpanzees and gorillas 19.3 to 15.7 million years ago.
  The most arboreal of the great apes, orangutans spend most of their time in trees. They have proportionally long arms and short legs and their hair is reddish-brown. Adult males may develop distinctive cheek pads or flanges and make long calls that attract females and intimidate rivals; younger males do not and resemble adult females. Orangutans are the most solitary of the great apes, social bonds occurring primarily between mothers and their dependent offspring, who remain together for the first two years.
context_section_description: By the early 19th century, orangutans were being kept in captivity. In 1817, an orangutan joined several other animals in London's Exeter Exchange. The ape was recorded to have shunned the company of other animals, aside from a dog, and appeared to prefer the company of humans. It was occasionally taken on coach rides dressed in a smock-frock and hat and even treated with refreshments at an inn where it impressed its host with its polite behaviour. The London Zoo housed a female orangutan named Jenny who was dressed in human clothing and learned to drink tea. She is remembered for her meeting with Charles Darwin who compared her reactions to those of a human child.
  Zoos and circuses in the Western world would continue to use orangutans and other simians as sources for entertainment, training them to behave like humans at tea parties and to perform tricks. Notable orangutan "character actors" include Jacob and Rosa of the Tierpark Hagenbeck in the early 20th century and Jiggs of the San Diego Zoo in the 1930s and 1940s. Animal rights groups have urged a stop to such acts, considering them abusive. Starting in the 1960s, zoos became more concerned with education and orangutans exhibits were designed to mimic their natural environment and displayed their natural behaviours.
  Ken Allen, an orangutan of the San Diego Zoo, became world famous in the 1980s for multiple escapes from his enclosures. He was nicknamed "the hairy Houdini" and was the subject of a fan club, T-shirts, bumper stickers and a song titled The Ballad of Ken Allen. Galdikas reported that her cook was sexually assaulted by a captive male orangutan. The ape may have suffered from a skewed species identity and forced copulation is a standard mating strategy for low-ranking male orangutans.
caption: The Female Orang – Utan (Jenny sitting in a chair)[101] c. 1830s
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