GIGANTOPITHECUS

Gigantopithecus is an extinct species of apes that lived around 9 million to 100,000 years ago and was considered as the largest ape ever existed. These apes could stand up to 3 m tall (9.8 ft.) and could weigh as much as 540-600kg (1190-1320 lb.). They were so large that if they survived now then the Hollywood movie “The King Kong” and “Big Foot” would be based reality! These animals roamed in Asia in what is now India, Vietnam, China and Indonesia. Some people say they walked on four legs like gorillas and chimpanzees while other says they walked like humans. There diet is to said consisted of tough, fibrous food by cutting,crushing and grinding it.

The first Gigantopithecus remains described by an anthropologist were found in 1935 by Ralph von Koenigswald in an apothecary shop. Fossilized teeth and bones are often ground into powder and used in some branches of traditional Chinese medicine. Von Koenigswald named the theorized species Gigantopithecus.

Since then, relatively few fossils of Gigantopithecus have been recovered. Aside from the molars recovered in Chinese traditional medicine shops, Liucheng Cave in Liuzhou, China, has produced numerous Gigantopithecus blacki teeth, as well as several jawbones. Other sites yielding significant finds were in Vietnam and India. These finds suggest that the range of Gigantopithecus was in southeast Asia. There are presently three extinct named species of Gigantopithecus: G. blacki, G. bilaspurensis, and G. giganteus.

In 1955, 47 G. blacki teeth were found among a shipment of “dragon bones” (also called “oracle bones”) in China. Tracing these teeth to their source resulted in the recovery of more teeth and a rather complete large mandible. By 1958, three mandibles and more than 1,300 teeth had been recovered. Gigantopithecus remains have come from sites in Hubei, Guangxi, and Sichuan, from warehouses for Chinese medicinal products, as well as from cave deposits. Not all Chinese remains have been dated to the same time period, and the fossils in Hubei appear to be of a later date than elsewhere in China. The Hubei teeth are also larger.[

Chinese physical anthropologist and paleoprimotologist Dong Tichen suggested that Gigantopithecus bears a series of quite distinctly differentiated characteristics of its own. Thus it stands for a completely independent branch on the primate genealogical tree. Tichen considered Gigantopithecinae as a new subfamily, with Gigantopithecus as its type genus, which logically belongs to Pongidae, not to Hominidae.

Gigantopithecus’s method of locomotion is uncertain, as no pelvic or leg bones have been found. The dominant view is that it walked on all fours like modern gorillas and chimpanzees; however, a minority opinion favors bipedal locomotion. This was most notably championed by the late Grover Krantz, but this assumption is based only on the very few jawbone remains found, all of which are U-shaped and widen towards the rear. This allows room for the windpipe to be within the jaw, allowing the skull to sit squarely on a fully erect spine as in modern humans, rather than roughly in front of it, as in the other great apes.

The majority view is that the weight of such a large, heavy animal would put enormous stress on the creature’s legs, ankles, and feet if it walked bipedally; while if it walked on all four limbs, like gorillas, its weight would be better distributed over each limb.

Based on the fossil evidence, adult male G. blacki are believed to have stood about 3 m (9.8 ft) tall and weighed as much as 540–600 kg (1,190–1,320 lb), making the species three to four times as heavy as modern gorillas and seven to eight times as heavy as the orangutan, its closest living relative. Large males may have had an armspan of over 3.6 m (11.8 ft). The species was highly sexually dimorphic, with adult females roughly half the weight of males. Because of wide interspecies differences in the relationship between tooth and body size, some argue that it is more likely that adult male G. blacki were much smaller, at roughly 1.8–2 m (5.9–6.6 ft) in height and 180–300 kg (400–660 lb) in weight.

Its appearance is not known, because of the fragmentary nature of its fossil remains. It possibly resembled modern gorillas, because of its supposedly similar lifestyle. Some scientists, however, think it probably looked more like its closest modern relative, the orangutan. Based on the upper estimates, Gigantopithecus possibly had few or no enemies when fully grown. However, younger, weak, or injured individuals may have been vulnerable to predation by big cats, large constrictor snakes, crocodiles, machairodonts, hyenas, and H. erectus. Based on the lower estimates, however, even fully grown individuals may have been vulnerable to predation by all the animals mentioned above other than large snakes.

The jaws of Gigantopithecus are deep and very thick. The molars are low-crowned and flat, and exhibit heavy enamel suitable for tough grinding. The premolars are broad and flat and configured similarly to the molars. The canine teeth are neither pointed nor sharp, while the incisors are small, peglike, and closely aligned. The features of teeth and jaws suggested that the animal was adapted to chewing tough, fibrous food by cutting, crushing, and grinding it. Gigantopithecus teeth also have a large number of cavities, similar to those found in giant pandas, whose diet, which includes a large amount of bamboo, may be similar to that of Gigantopithecus.

In addition to bamboo, Gigantopithecus consumed other vegetable foods, as suggested by the analysis of the phytoliths adhering to its teeth. An examination of the microscopic scratches and gritty plant remains embedded in Gigantopithecus teeth suggests that they fed on seeds and fruit, as well as bamboo.

After changes in climate during the Pleistocene era, Gigantopithcus may have changed to a diet more reliant on fruit due to bamboo becoming becoming more scarce. This comes from the fact that many fossilized Gigantopithecus teeth contain eroded enamel, most likely the result of a diet that contained high amounts of acidic fruit.

Gigantopithecus may have become extinct approximately 100,000 years ago because the climate change during the Pleistocene era changed the plants from forest to savanna, and their food supply in fruits decreased. Gigantopithecus did not eat the grass, roots and leaves that were dominant food sources in the savanna.

There is also speculation that competition with H. erectus may have contributed to the extinction of Gigantopithecus. This is due to the discovery of both H. erectus and Gigantopithecus fossils in South China, indicating that the two species may have coexisted at one time. Coexistence may have lead to competition over food such as bamboo, which was quickly becoming a rarity with the changing climate of the Pleistocene.