Photo by Polls show that many of us know little about two scientific disciplines related to conservation: taxonomy and nomenclature (how names are applied to animals). This makes it difficult for the media to report certain things in ways that many people can understand.[teaserbreak]
Recently, it was announced that a “new species” of orangutan had been discovered in Sumatra. It is not that scientists found orangutans where previously they were unknown, the “traditional” method of finding a new animal species. What they determined is that a distinct population of orangutans had very slight physical differences from others living on the huge island of Sumatra. DNA analysis showed distinct differences between this population, and all other Sumatran orangutans.
The only other place orangutans are native is the island of Borneo, where there three distinct forms—or “subspecies”—have been, which intergrade where they overlap, essentially thereby constituting the classic definition of “subspecies” or “race,” or—the term I prefer—”geographic variations.” Those differences are minor.
No such differences has been found in Sumatra, but it has now been established that there are subtle differences in color, in hair texture, and distinct differences in DNA, between all other Sumatran orangutans and the “new species,” thus given the full species name of Pongo tapanuliensis, the Tapanuli orangutan. The Sumatran orangutan, named in 1827, is Pongo abelii (pictured above), while the Bornean orangutan, discovered and named by science in 1760, is Pongo pygmaeus.
Pongo designates the genus, which has only those three (previously thought to be two) species in it. They form a subfamily, Ponginae, within the family, Hominidae, which also includes humans. There are only three genera (the plural of “genus”) and seven species, depending, of course, on which taxa (the plural of taxon: a group resembling each other more than they resemble anything else) is determined to be a distinct species, which is sometimes a matter of debate among scientists.
That matters because we tend to give more importance to a species, than a “mere” subspecies, or geographic variation. So, while we were already very concerned that the Bornean orangutan is “endangered” and the Sumatran “critically endangered,” the Sumatran is now divided into two species, making each even more critically endangered. It is estimated that there are about 800 of the newly recognized species of orangutan, occupying about 386 square miles. Compare that with well over 50 million people on the entire island of Sumatra, or over seven billion people worldwide.
In fact, of the seven Hominids—humans; the Bornean, Sumatran, and Tapanuli orangutans; the western and the eastern gorillas; the chimpanzee and the bonobo—are all classified as endangered except us. Further, they are divided among geographic variations that form distinct taxa, and still further, there are almost certainly one or more “cryptic species” which are also waiting to be discovered in the laboratory. And yet, among them only, we have the absurd habit of calling any other species “overpopulated” or “hyperabundant.” We need less hubris. We need more apes. We have enough of us.
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Barry