Chantek, a 39-year-old male orangutan known around the world for his ability to use American Sign Language to communicate, has died at Zoo Atlanta.

That's why studying orangutans can also help us understand more about how humans evolved, especially when it comes to things like communication, intelligence and the roots of language and rhythm.

Newsletter Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news It’s easy enough to spot similarities between orangutans and humans — the “man of the forest” can certainly act human, and they ...

In the late 1970s, Shapiro took his research to Indonesian Borneo, where he lived among ex-captive orangutans and conducted the first study of sign language with apes in their natural habitat.

Orangutan calls have a complex structure that was thought to be unique to human language. Short sequences are nested inside longer sequences, much like the way we assemble long sentences from ...

Researchers have discovered that orangutans possess vocal abilities similar to beatboxing, where they can produce two different sounds simultaneously. The study suggests that these vocal abilities ...

Orangutans can make two separate sounds simultaneously, much like songbirds or human beatboxers, according to a study led by the University of Warwick.