The orangutans are the two exclusively Asian species of extant great apes. Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, orangutans are currently found only in the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra. Classified in the genus Pongo, orangutans were considered to be one species. However, since 1996, they have been divided into two species: the Bornean orangutan (P. pygmaeus) and the Sumatran orangutan (P. abelii).
In addition, the Bornean species is divided into three subspecies. The
orangutans are also the only surviving species of the subfamily Ponginae, which also included several other species like Gigantopithecus,
the largest known primate. Both species had their genomes sequenced and
they appear to have diverged around 400,000 years ago. Orangutans
diverged from the rest of the great apes approximately 15.7 to 19.3 mya (million years ago).
