Gigantopithecus: this is how the largest ape that ever existed became extinct

Almost as tall as a basketball hoop and heavy as a brown bear, Gigantopithecus blacki was the largest ape that ever lived. For more than a million years in the Pleistocene, Gigantopithecus roamed what is now southern China. However, by the time ancient humans arrived in the region, Gigantopithecus had disappeared.

To determine why, scientists analyzed clues preserved in the teeth of Gigantopithecus and in cave sediments. Their findings, published recently in the journal Nature, reveal that the nearly 3-meter-tall apes were likely doomed by their specialized diet and inability to adapt to a changing environment.

Paleontologists discovered Gigantopithecus in the 1930s in an apothecary in Hong Kong, where the ape's enormous molars were sold as “dragon teeth.” Since then, scientists have excavated about 2,000 Gigantopithecus teeth and a handful of fossil jaws in caves in southern China.

Paleoartists depict it as looking like an orangutan (its closest living relative) crossed with a silverback gorilla, but larger.

Yingqi Zhang, a paleontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing and an author of the paper, worked with Kira Westaway, a geochronologist at Macquarie University in Australia, to determine what drove the ape to extinction. They compared its teeth to fossilized teeth from Pongo weidenreichi, an extinct orangutan that lived alongside Gigantopithecus.

Gigantopithecus became extinct 215,000 to 295,000 years ago, coinciding with a period of environmental change, they concluded.

Pollen samples revealed that before the extinction window, the local environment was dominated by evergreen trees in closed-canopy forests. Analysis of the teeth revealed that the apes consumed fibrous plants, fruits and flowers.

Starting about 600,000 years ago, the region's climate began to change with the seasons as dense forests gave way to grasslands and open forests. That led to “dry periods when fruit was hard to find,” Westaway said. Ancient orangutans adapted by eating shoots, nuts, seeds and insects, but Gigantopithecus switched to less nutritious alternatives like bark and branches. Your teeth from this period show signs of chronic stress.

Sergio Almécija, a paleoanthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History, said the disappearance of Gigantopithecus blacki shows that even the largest animals are vulnerable to becoming too specialized.

“These apes become so specialized to live in a specific environment that once that environment changes, they disappear,” he said.

By: Jack Tamisiea