Jan Latta - Ollie the Orangutan

Ollie the ORANGUTAN Come on a great adventure with me and learn about my family TRUE TO LIFE BOOKS Educating children about endangered species
by Jan Latta Copyright 2010 Jan Latta. Published in Australia by TRUE TO LIFE BOOKS. www.truetolifebooks.com.au All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior permission from True to Life Books. ISBN 978-0-9807958-0-6 Hello, my name is Ollie, and I am an orangutan.
I live with my family in a beautiful rainforest
on the island of Borneo. We arrived on earth about ten thousand
years ago in Southeast Asia.
Now we live in Borneo and Sumatra.

Orangutan means Man of the forest
in the Malay language. But we are often called the red ape
because we have reddish-coloured hair. We are the largest tree-dwelling
animals in the world. We have a leafy home where we can
swing from branches and vines. We live with our mother until we are about
eight years old. We love riding on her back.
It is great fun. We need to cling to her and hold on tight.
Sometimes we are upside-down. My mother grooms us to keep our hair clean
from bugs and insects. We eat many different kinds of fruits.
We also like to eat leaves, flowers and
sometimes insects. We go into the river to cool off.
We like to drink water every day. We go into the river to cool off.
We like to drink water every day.

Sometimes we
collect water from leaves to drink. We have very strong flexible arms and legs.
We can walk on the ground on two legs or use
our fists and feet to walk on all four limbs. My dad is twice as big as my mum. He can weigh
up to 120 kilograms and grows up to 1.5 metres high.
His large cheekpads are called flanges. Every night my mother climbs up a tree to make a nest.
She pulls down soft branches and leaves to make a
nice bed. Look closely and you can see our hands,
ears and eyes are also similar to yours. We have opposable thumbs to help us
hold onto vines and branches.