Orangutan in Dipterocarp Forest

Orangutan in Dipterocarp Forest is an original illustration set in Danum Valley, Sabah, Malaysia. It lies in equatorial latitudes, where the climate is tropical rainforest — hot and wet all year.

A long-armed rust-orange ape moves between a thick liana and a high branch, its body clearly readable against layered rainforest canopy. Enormous straight trunks rise past it, and the forest resolves into distinct horizontal layers of foliage receding into haze.

Why are the orangutan's arms so long?

Arms that long relative to the body are a commitment to moving through canopy rather than on the ground — this is the heaviest tree-dwelling mammal alive. The forest itself is the other clue: enormously tall straight trunks with a distinct layered structure belong to a specific family of tropical hardwood that dominates only in equatorial Southeast Asia, and only where rain never stops.

Terpano is a free daily geography puzzle. You study one original illustration, place a pin on a borderless terrain map, and see how close you were. There is no account and no sign-up; progress stays in your own browser. It plays in 11 languages.