Giganto were the biggest apes that have ever been – 3 metres tall and weighing in at 250 kg. Related to orang-utans, and distantly to humans, they died out over 200,000 years ago at a time when other great apes were thriving.
The first evidence of Gigantopithecus blacki came from teeth found in a Chinese medicine shop in Hong Kong in 1935. Now we have many teeth and four jawbones.
A global team of researchers report today in Nature that Giganto couldn’t adjust to a changing climate that led to forests in southern China becoming more seasonal.
Their conclusions come from detailed study of teeth and other samples from 22 caves across Guangxi Province using six dating technologies plus environmental and behaviour analysis. The teeth show striking evidence of chronic stress as the apes declined.
Associate Professor Kira Westaway from Macquarie University co-led the study with Professor Yingqi Zhang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences supported by
- Australia: Southern Cross University, Wollongong University, University of Queensland, ANU.
- China: Shandong University, Natural History Museum of Guangxi, Zhuang Ethnological Musuem, Jiaotong University.
- Other: University of Iowa (USA), Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology (Germany), Centre on Human Evolution (Spain), University of Johannesburg (South Africa).
Macquarie University story at https://bit.ly/47unGCq