Why Did The Biggest Ape to Ever Live Go Extinct? Scientists May Have the Answer

Amaze Lab

We might fancy ourselves the smartest apes to ever live, but we are certainly not the largest. That honorific goes to the Gigantopithecus blacki, a creature that likely stood nearly 10-feet-tall and weighed upwards of 660 pounds.

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00:00We might fancy ourselves the smartest apes to ever have lived, but we are certainly not the

00:08largest. That honorific goes to Gigantopithecus blackie, a creature that likely stood nearly 10

00:13feet tall and weighed upwards of 660 pounds. So what happened to this veritable gargantuan?

00:19Well, according to paleontologist Ying Kijong, it's been somewhat of a mystery,

00:23but they might finally have figured it out. Gigantopithecus went extinct between 295,000

00:28and 215,000 years ago, based on radiometric dating from the jawbone fossils and teeth we have,

00:34the only signs of the creature. It lived in what is now southern China, and based on pollen samples

00:40from the time the giant ape went extinct, researchers are beginning to divine a cause.

00:44They say that Gigantopithecus thrived in the dense forest the area was known for,

00:48but a changing climate ultimately did them in. Those dense fruit-filled forests became more sparse,

00:53with grasslands taking over many of those areas, meaning less diverse foods to eat,

00:58and fossil records indicate chronic stress as nutrition became more difficult in a changing

01:02world. And for a creature as large as Gigantopithecus was, food is always going to be number one.

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