PEOPLE who work with orang-utans are regularly struck by their uncanny similarity to humans. Orang-utans walk on two legs. They have been known to fashion rain hats and shelters, and teach their young to make tools. One even taught herself to whistle.
As Elaine Morgan points out on page 26, orang-utans are in many respects closer to us than chimps. Yet we know chimps are our closest genetic relatives. So the humanness of the red ape is a puzzle. Is it a case of convergent evolution, with orangs and humans independently evolving similar adaptations? Or did chimps lose human-like skills after diverging from our lineage? We may never know – but here is yet another reminder what we will lose if we allow this beguiling but threatened creature to go extinct.