Orangutans In Malay orang means "person" and utan is defined as "forest'. Thus Orangutan literally means "Person of the Forest". Orangutans are found in the tropical forests of Sumatra and Borneo. They are the most arboreal of the great apes and move amongst the safety of the trees from one feeding site to the next. They are so well adapted to arboreal life that they cannot place their feet on the ground, instead they walk on the outside of their curved foot. There is a scattered population of orangutan in Indonesian Borneo, Malaysia Borneo and northern Sumatra. The different habitats have isolated the orangutan reproductively and geographically from one another creating a "degree