Climate Change Orangutan

Orangutans have agile limbs and can swing from tree to tree easily, but like many apes, they do not have tails. In the future, when water levels rise due to the melting ice at the poles, rainforests may become flooded. Animals will have to adapt to live in the canopy and sustain themselves without the forest floor. Orangutans may mutate and grow tails, becoming more successful at navigating the dense canopy and finding food than their tailless cousins, and take over the population through natural selection. Tailed orangutans will have an easier time finding food in the trees and surviving without touching the flooded forest floor, whereas at the present day orangutans do not need this adaptation because they do not have to remain exclusively in the trees. As an alternative to tails, they may even grow to swim with flippers or gills and navigate the flooded forest floor.