red ape

plural red apes

1. Synonym of orangutan (Pongo spp.).

   In Borneo the red ape inhabits the swampy forest-tract at the foot of the mountains.

   1911, The Encyclopaedia Britannica

   5 more examples

   Instead the red apes had fallen back farther into the forest and I could judge what effect this would have on the reproductive activity of the population from my Bornean findings

   1974, John Ramsay MacKinnon, In search of the red ape, page 208

   The description of the morphological similarities between humans and various species of ape forms the central theme of The Red Ape, with the emphasis very much on the close relationship of orang-utans (the red apes) to humans.

   1987 May 14, Peter Andrews, “Orang-utans and human origins”, in New Scientist, volume 114, number 1560, page 58

   Then a biologist named Morris goodman published a few papers, based also on immunological comparisons, in which he noted strong similarities among the blood protiens of chimpanzees, gorillas, and humans. On these molecular grounds, Goodman argued, the genera Pan and Gorilla belonged with Homo in the family Hominidae, rather than with the orangutan in Pongidae. The three African genera of apes, as Goodman saw them, are more similar to each other than any of them was to the red ape of Borneo and Sumatra.

   2001, David Quammen, The Boilerplate Rhino: Nature in the Eye of the Beholder, →ISBN

   Although captive red apes are avid tool users, the most striking feature of tool use among the wild orangutans observed until then was its absence.

   2007, Michael Alan Park, Biological Anthropology: An Introductory Reader, →ISBN, page 62

   With concerted international support for the Indonesian PHPA, the red ape could soon be neglected again in order to insure its survival in the wild, free from the persecution of its fatally assertive terrestrial relative.

   2013, Biruté M.F. Galdikas, R.D. Nadler, N. Rosen, The Neglected Ape, →ISBN, page 21

   Synonyms: orangutan

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see red, ape.