Article: A brand-new species of orangutan exists, scientists have determined, based on their analysis of a skull and a population of 800 animals living deep in the Indonesian forest.
Before 1997, this isolated population of orangutans in a remote jungle was little more than a myth. Then people confirmed that the animals were living there, but they suspected that it was a group of Sumatran orangutans, which are already known to science. In 2013, scientists received a mysterious skull belonging to one of the individuals. After studying the skull and the living animals, researchers realized that this creature was a previously unknown species.
The Tapanuli orangutan, Pongo tapanuliensis, lives in the Batang Toru area in North Sumatra, Indonesia, south of and isolated from Sumatran orangutans, Pongo abelii. It is genetically, physically, and even behaviorally different than the other two species of orangutans.
This is amazing news but it is paradoxically bad news for the Sumatran Orangutan. We only thought there were 7,300 of them and now there are 800 less.