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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 Orang-utan Sanctuary of the Melbourne Zoo is certainly
one of the friendliest environments for the Orangutans to live in captivity.
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Orang-utan Sanctuary Melbourne Zoo
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.
It is easy to spend hours enjoying the antics of these wonderful creatures at the Orang-utan 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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Orangutan
Sanctuary Enclosure Melbourne Zoo 
Another
of the more humane enclosures at the Melbourne Zoo is the Orang-utan
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. 
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. 