This week, wild orangutan Macho will be 6 years old and his mother Maya has given him an extra special birthday gift- a new sibling to play with!

Astonishingly, Maya’s new infant will be the sixth orangutan birth recorded in 2020 in the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve, just a couple of weeks after we shared the news of Betli’s latest arrival. Considering that female orangutans will generally have a maximum of three or four offspring in their lifetime as they care for their young for several years, it puts into perspective how fruitful this year has been for the orangutans of this Reserve.

23-year-old Maya’s newest arrival will be her third infant following her son Mozart who was born in 2008 and her second son Macho. Although learning to be independent, Macho still never seems to stray too far away from his mother, and the pair are occasionally observed together searching for food in the forest near Camp Gemini.

Our monitoring staff at camp were thrilled this week to learn that Macho had received a new brother or sister. On Monday afternoon our team spotted Maya and Macho as normal, but under closer inspection it was evident that there was a new face buried into the hair on Maya’s back.

Naturally being protective of her young infant, Maya has kept her newborn close in their precious first days together, so much so that our team are yet to get a clear photograph of the young primate. It’s thought that the newborn is female, making her Maya’s first daughter, but more observations are required before we can begin to definitively identify the sex and give a name to the infant.

Most importantly, these critically endangered orangutans appear to be healthy and doing very well in this natural habitat. We’re confident that Maya will be as caring a mother to her newborn as she has been to Macho and we look forward to studying their relationship as it grows together.