On Earth Day, let’s discover 5 incredible animal species that spend most of their existence on trees.

Trees are some of the world’s most ancient living beings and make our existence possible. In fact, about 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihoods and trees – thanks to photosynthesis – are our best allies in reducing CO2 in the atmosphere. All green areas are inestimable hubs of biodiversity: they are home to 80 per cent of the planet’s plant and animal species. In ancient times, humans started develop their lives in forests, which nourished them and kept them far from predators. Here are some incredible animals that spend most of their existence on trees.

Tree-kangaroo

There are 14 species of tree-kangaroos that populate rainforests in Australia and New Guinea. These funny marsupials feed on leaves and spend most of their lives on trees. However, they are threatened by illegal logging carried out to make space for plantations of coffee, rice and cereals and by hunting.

Hoatzin

The hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin) is a bizarre, mainly arboreal bird with a debated taxonomic classification. These South American animals, characterised by a colourful crest of leathers, cannot fly long distances. Many believe the hoatzin has evolved independently from other modern birds, thus maintaining some primitive characteristics. The most evident one is the presence of claws on chicks’ wings, which remind those of the plumed dinosaur Archaeopteryx.
Hoazin

Orangutan

The orangutan (Pongo abelii) is the world’s largest arboreal mammal. These peaceful primates live in the forests of Borneo and Sumatra and spend their days passing from one tree to another. They also build their nests on trees’ tops. Their love for trees is expressed by their own name, orang-untang, “man of the forests” in Malaysian.

Chamaleon

Chamaleons are camouflage artists and are able to change their colour giving life to one of Mother Nature’s most surprising special effects. Most of chameleons live in Africa and Madagascar, while others are from Asia and some European areas. These animals mainly live on trees, where they hunt insects thanks to their powerful viscous tongue.

Italian tree frog

The Italian tree frog (Hyla intermedia) is an unmistakable amphibian characterised by its bright-green colour and a dark line. This small frog endemic to Italy has perfectly adapted to arboreal life. Its sticky fingertips allow it to easily climb trees, shrubs and canes, while its colours allow camouflaging on leafy branches.

Male orangutans plan their trav­el route up to a day in ad­vance and com­mu­ni­cate it to oth­er orangutans, re­search in­di­cates.
An­thro­po­l­o­gists at the Uni­vers­ity of Zu­rich found that wild-living orangutans make use of the plan­ning abil­ity to at­tract fe­males and re­pel male ri­vals.

Source: Here

We often think of the ability to plan for the future as a uniquely human attribute. Recent studies have suggested that our primate cousins might be able to plan for certain occasions, as well (like the mischievous chimp who stockpiled stones that he could later hurl at zoo visitors) but whether they use this ability in the wild is harder to show. A new study from the Anthropological Institute and Museum at the University of Zurich indicates that wild great apes do, in fact, plan hours in advance, and announce their plans to their friends.
Anthropologist Carel va Shaik tracked the ability of male orangutans to plan their travels in Indonesia through what's called a "long call," a spontaneous cry certain males—the ones that develop large cheek pads, called flanged males—emit throughout the day. "It’s a very loud booming vocalization that lasts up to four minutes—usually one to two—that goes like woop woop woop. We call them pulses." These male orangutans call in the direction they plan to travel up to a day in advance, he found, with the flanges acting like nature's bullhorn to focus the call in one direction.

Source: Here

For many years, zoos have used water moats to confine chimpanzees, gorillas or orangutans. When apes ventured into deep water, they often drowned. Some argued that this indicated a definitive difference between humans and apes: people enjoy the water and are able to learn to swim, while apes prefer to stay on dry land.
Renato Bender from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and Nicole Bender from the University of Bern have studied a chimpanzee and an orangutan in the United States.

Source: Here

The female, which is yet to be named, arrived on Sunday night at 23:45 BST to its mother, 25-year-old Dana.
The newborn joins Jantho, the first orangutan to be born at the wildlife park in eight years.

Keeper Gordon Hunt has described the birth as "miraculous" as Dana's previous pregnancy in 2009 resulted in a still birth and she nearly perished.

Source: Here

Orangutans, as one of the more well known great apes of the world, have been popular as pop icons, with countless orangutan characters playing integral roles in the development of storylines and plots.

From the wizard/librarian-turned-orangutan in the Discworld series by award-winning author Terry Prachett, to the spotlight focused on an orangutan character in Babe: Pig In The City, orangutans are also quite popular as plushie toy collections and other forms of child-friendly merchandise products, with such items drawing inspiration from their popularity as mainstream media characters.
Only found in Asia, orangutans are known for being one of the more intelligent ape species in the world, with researchers and scientists noting how wild orangutans actually use tools and other implements in getting tasks and chores done. Also known for their learning abilities, the orangutan’s capacity to take on “tests” and “challenges” have piqued the interests of different experts for years, along with their actual capacity to have distinct individual personalities.

Defined by their reddish-hued coats, the orangutan’s physical attributes define them as arboreal creatures, spending most of they days up on the canopies of trees. Contrary to most assumptions, they are quite docile but their strength does allow them to inflict serious injury when they are provoked.

Considered to be the most solitary of all the known great apes, orangutans are truly marvelous creatures, whose intelligence and unique physique have made them the target of different poachers and illegal animal trade.

Given the fact that they are only found in Asia, they stand to be at risk of going extinct, should any more damage to their natural habitats be done.

An orangutan took center stage in the 1996 feature, Dunston Checks In, co-starring with Jason Alexander from Seinfeld-fame, Faye Dunaway, Eric Lloyd and Rupert Everett.
Telling the tale of how a mischievous orangutan made friends with a boy in a luxury hotel, the movie didn’t exactly become the epic comedy/adventure film flick it was poised to be, but it effectively managed to draw attention towards one of the most easily and readily recognized of apes in the world, the orangutan.

Found in the jungles of Malaysia and Indonesia, the orangutan remains to be one of the most famous of the great apes, known for living most of their lives up in trees. But as they are the most “tree dwelling” or arboreal of the great apes, the orangutan is also the most solitary of the bunch, known mostly for the bond between mothers and their young, with baby orangutans predominantly dependent on their mothers for two years since their birth.

As the orangutan’s redish-hued fur remains to be one predominant orangutan characteristic, the intelligence of orangutans is another trademark sported by the species, with different orangutans exhibiting extensive intelligence markers such as the implementation of tools for various “jobs” and activities, as well as the creation of “beddings” utilizing leaves, barks and twigs.

Being the subject of various tests and studies focused in assessing the orangutan’s intelligence capacities, they have also long been poached by poachers, leaving the great ape with its highly endangered status.

With its name attributed to have been taken from the Malay “person of the forest”, the orangutan is truly one of the world’s most beautiful creatures, the gentle giants of the forest whose endearing existence means a lot in the conservation and preservation of the world’s natural ecology and natural habitats.