The species has been named the Tapanuli orangutan – a third species in addition to the Bornean and Sumatran.
A team pointed out that there are only 800 individuals remaining, making this one of the world’s most threatened ape species, reports BBC online.
The analysis of a total 37 complete orangutan genomes – the code for the biological make-up of each animal – has now shown that these apes separated from their Bornean relatives less than 700,000 years ago – a snip in evolutionary time.
The final piece of the puzzle, though, was very subtle but consistent differences in the shape of the Sumatran, Bornean and Tapanuli orangutan skulls.
This newly described great ape will be added to the list of Critically Endangered species, just as it is added to the zoological textbooks.
“It is very worrying,” said one of the scientist to BBC, “to discover something new and then immediately also realise that we have to focus all of our efforts before we lose it.”
Læs mere om Tapanuli-orangutangen på Wikipedia
