105. Reading Skills Comprehension: Orangutans

ORANGUTANS

Read the following passage and answer the following questions:-

Orangutans require less food than humans. When they eat, orangutans nibble mostly on ripe fruit, along with smaller portions of leaves and seeds. Even in captivity, this diet doesn’t diminish an orangutan’s get-up and go attitude. They wake up early, after a long night sleep. Then they spend the day socializing, exploring their indoor and outdoor enclosures. They also regularly engage in games with researchers. These activities of the orangutans, taken together add up to the same level of exercise performed by humans in physically demanding agricultural lifestyles.

In the wild, orangutans live in the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra where food availability is highly variable and unpredictable. Like fresh fruit from the garden, the pickings are often feast or famine. But the trade-off is, that low energy means, less energy is available to do things like grow and reproduce. So orangutans grow slowly and reproduce slowly, which is evolutionarily risky because an orangutan might die before it passes on its genes. Human mothers can have a child every two to four years, but orangutans in the wild only reproduce every seven to eight years.

Orangutans are among the most intelligent primates they use a variety of sophisticated and construct elaborate sleeping nests each night from branches and foliage. These apes have been extensively studied for their learning abilities. There may even be distinctive cultures within populations. Both orangutan species are considered to be endangered with the Sumatran orangutan being critically endangered. Human activities have caused a severe decline in the populations and ranges of both species. Threats to wild orangutan populations include poaching, habitat destruction, and the illegal pet trade. Several conservation and rehabilitation organizations are dedicated to the survival of orangutans in the wild.

We will lose much information about our closest relatives and our own evolutionary history if we let them get extinct.

(a) According to Pontzer, orangutans mostly eat——–

(b) It is seen that orangutans and humans do almost the same———-

(d) We do not want the orangutans to become extinct as————–

(e) The word `Unpredictable’ means to be ————-

(f) Orangutans are among———- primates.

(g) ——— are the critically endangered species.

(h) There is a severe decline in the population of orangutans because of ———-

Answers:

(a) ripe fruit, along with smaller portions of leaves and seeds

(b) activities as socializing, exploring their indoor and outdoor enclosures etc, and physical demanding outdoor lifestyles

(d) we will lose much information about our closest relatives and our own evolutionary history if we let them get extinct