Pongo fossil map
Where fossils of Pongo have been found, shown on the Earth as it looked about 0 million years ago and on today’s map.
Dots are fossil collections recorded in the Paleobiology Database. The “then” view moves today’s fossil sites back to their positions 0 million years ago (the time slice nearest the median age of the fossils) using the Merdith et al. (2021) plate model; positions are approximate. Open on the timeline map →
| Group | Early mammals |
|---|---|
| Lived | 2.58–0.0117 million years ago (Gelasian to Late Pleistocene) |
| Periods | Quaternary |
| Family | Hominidae |
| Named by | Lacépède 1799 |
| Fossil records | 48 occurrences at 20 locations (PBDB) |
| Found in | Vietnam, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Laos |
| Rock formations | txn:40899 |
About Pongo
Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. They are now found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Classified in the genus Pongo, orangutans were originally considered to be one species. In 1996, they were divided into two species: the Bornean orangutan (P. pygmaeus, with three subspecies) and the Sumatran orangutan (P. abelii); a third species, the Tapanuli orangutan (P. tapanuliensis), was identified definitively in 2017. The orangutans are the only surviving members of the subfamily Ponginae, which diverged genetically from the other hominids (gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans) between 19.3 and 15.7 million years ago.
Text in “About” is quoted from the Wikipedia article Orangutan (revision 1381301865), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; introduction excerpted verbatim, formatting removed. Ages, family, authority and fossil records: Paleobiology Database, accessed 23 October 2026. Ages are those of the rock layers the fossils were found in. Wikidata: Q41050.
