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Orangutan Sanctuary Melbourne Zoo

Orangutan Enclosure of Melbourne Zoo Melbourne Zoo Orangutan Enclosure. Orangutan Images, Information.

There is something so human like about Orangutan's that one could sit and watch them all day. Thankfully the Melbourne Zoo has put the viewing of these wonderful animals as a high priority. The elevated tree top walkway within the Asian Rainforest Exhibit of the Melbourne Zoo, allows visitors to see the amazing and highly intelligent Orangutans close up, high in their natural environment.

Orangutans are tree dwelling creatures, so the Orangutan Sanctuary of the Melbourne Zoo is certainly one of the friendliest environments for the Orangutans to live in captivity.

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Orangutan Sanctuary Melbourne Zoo

Image of male Orangutan of Melbourne Zoo's Orang-utan Sanctuary. Another of the more humane enclosures at the Melbourne Zoo is the Orangutan Sanctuary, where these fascinating creature are cared for in an environment that simulates their natural habitat. As a tree dwelling creature, it is vital to their well being to have ample room to use their natural gifts and swing and play through the tree tops.

Visitors are also well thought of and the management of Melbourne Zoo should be commended for their vision in making a tree tops walking platform, where people can see the Orangutans play, high above ground level. There is nothing finer than watching a young adolescent Orangutan use ropes and branches to swing from tree to tree.

Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, Orangutans belong to the species of Great Apes, so are closely related to humans. Highly intelligent beings, Orangutans diet consists mainly of fruits and nuts, plus leaves, bark, honey and bird eggs.

Male Orangutans can grow to almost 6 feet tall or 175 centimeters, with females being generally smaller than males growing to just over 4 feet or around 127 centimeters. It is easy to distinguish males from females as the males head is huge and round, as in the Orangutan image shown above.

Image of 5 year old Melbourne Zoo Orangutan.Normally gentle creatures, Orangutans arms are twice as long as their legs, which probably helps in climbing trees and swinging through the branches. Orangutans do use a variety of tools to gather food, which shows their intelligence over other tree dwelling creature. Only found in Borneo and Sumatra, due to logging and forest clearing, Orangutans are threatened with extinction.

It is easy to spend hours enjoying the antics of these wonderful creatures at the Orangutan Sanctuary of Melbourne Zoo. Part of the Asian Rainforest Exhibit, visitors can now meet Orangutans almost face to face in their tree tops home.

(Common spellings and misspellings are Orangutan, Orang-utan and Oranutang. Urangutang is not correct spelling while some regard having the "g" on the end of the name as incorrect. In Malay, orang means person and hutan means forest, therefore Orang-utan means a "person of the forest".)

 

 

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