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The orangutan, together with all the great apes, is one of our closest relatives. Although this relationship is not a simple linear ancestry, Homo Sapiens and the orangutan had a common ancestor living about 10-12 million years ago. The ancestral orangutans were larger than extant ones, and they are thought to have lived a less arboreal existence, but over many generations evolutionary pressures, such as predation, might have forced them back into the trees. Their ground predators include the clouded leopard and the Sumatran tiger but, in general, orangutans have had relatively few predators, apart from humans. |
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