Barbara Power, age 12, of Marysville, New Brunswick, Canada, for her question:

Where do we find the orangutan?

This rather gentle giant makes his home in the steamy jungles of Borneo and Sumatra. The orangutan, one of the world's great apes, is very much in demand. So many of his kinfolk have been captured to be displayed in zoos and for other reasons that his species is threatened with extinction. No one knows for sure how many are left in Borneo and Sumatra, but the numbers are dwindling and this big ape lives nowhere else in the world.

If you see a captive orangutan in a zoo you never will forget him. He is a big, bulky, chunky fellow with an unforgettable coat of shaggy red hair. When he stands upright, which he rarely does, he is only about four and a half feet tall. But his bulky body weighs a good 200 pounds. His pear shaped head is slumped down between his massive shoulders. As a rule, there are loose flaps of skin hanging around his huge face. The orangutan would never win a beauty contest    but the sorrowful expression on his huge face stays in your memory.