The most important primate ever to stroll the Earth went extinct as a result of it couldn’t adapt to its altering setting, with the mighty beast decreased to residing off bark and twigs earlier than dying off, scientists stated on Wednesday.
Gigantopithecus blacki, which stood 10 ft tall and weighed as much as 660 kilos, thrived within the forests of southern Asia till somewhat greater than 200,000 years in the past.
Precisely why the nice ape died off after flourishing for lots of of hundreds of years has been one of many lasting mysteries of paleontology ever since German scientist G.H.R. von Koenigswald first came across one in every of its tooth at a Hong Kong apothecary within the Nineteen Thirties.
Garcia/Joannes-Boyau/Southern Cross College by way of AP
The molar was so large it was being bought as a “dragon’s tooth.”
“It was three to 4 occasions larger than the tooth from any nice ape,” Renaud Joannes-Boyau, a researcher at Australia’s Southern Cross College, advised Agence France-Presse.
“That intrigued him and that is the place all this analysis began,” stated Joannes-Boyau, a co-author of a brand new examine within the journal Nature.
All that has been discovered of the Gigantopithecus since are 4 partial jawbones and round 2,000 tooth, lots of of which have been found inside caves in southern China’s Guangxi province.
Even after a decade of excavations in these caves, the reason for the ape’s extinction remained elusive, stated the examine’s co-lead writer Yingqi Zhang of China’s Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
Looking for to determine a timeline of the animal’s existence, the crew of Chinese language, Australian and U.S. scientists collected fossilized tooth from 22 caves.
The crew used six totally different strategies to find out the age of the fossils, together with a comparatively new methodology referred to as luminescence courting which measures the final time minerals have been uncovered to daylight.
The oldest tooth dated again greater than 2 million years, whereas the latest have been from round 250,000 years in the past.
Now the researchers can inform “the entire story about Gigantopithecus’ extinction” for the primary time, Zhang advised AFP in his workplace in Beijing.
Enormous animal made a “big mistake”
They established that the animal’s “extinction window” was between 215,000 and 295,000 years in the past, considerably sooner than beforehand thought.
Throughout this time, the seasons have been changing into extra pronounced, which was altering the native setting.
The thick, lush forest that Gigantopithecus had thrived in was beginning to give technique to extra open forests and grassland.
This more and more disadvantaged the ape of its favourite meals: fruit.
The massive animal was sure to the bottom, unable swing into the timber for larger meals.
As a substitute, it “relied on much less nutritious fallback meals equivalent to bark and twigs,” stated Kira Westaway, a geochronologist at Australia’s Macquarie College and co-lead writer.
Zhang stated this was a “big mistake” which finally led to the animal’s extinction.
“Finally its battle to adapt led to the extinction of the best primate to ever inhabit the Earth,” the examine’s authors wrote.
The primate’s dimension made it tough to go very far to seek for meals — and its large bulk meant that it wanted lots to eat.
Regardless of these challenges, “surprisingly G. blacki even elevated in dimension throughout this time,” Westaway stated.
By analyzing its tooth, the researchers have been capable of measure the rising stress the ape was beneath as its numbers shrunk.
Xinhua Information Company by way of Getty Photos
Proteins detected in a Gigantopithecus fossil confirmed that its closest residing relative is the Bornean orangutan, in line with a 2019 evaluation.
“It might have been a distant cousin (of orangutans), within the sense that its closest residing family members are orangutans, in comparison with different residing nice apes equivalent to gorillas or chimpanzees or us,” Dr. Frido Welker, from the College of Copenhagen, advised BBC Information in 2019.
For the brand new examine, researchers in contrast Gigantopithecus’ destiny to its orangutan relative, Pongo weidenreichi, which dealt with the altering setting much better.
The orangutan was smaller and extra agile, capable of transfer swiftly by way of the forest cover to collect a wide range of meals equivalent to leaves, flowers, nuts, seeds and even bugs and small mammals.
It turned even smaller over time, thriving as its large cousin Gigantopithecus starved.
Westaway emphasised that it was vital to know the destiny of the species that got here earlier than us — notably “with the specter of a sixth mass extinction occasion looming over us.”
Between round 2 million and 22 million years in the past, a number of dozen species of nice apes inhabited Africa, Europe and Asia, fossil information present. In the present day, solely gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and people stay.
Whereas the primary people emerged in Africa, scientists do not know on which continent the nice ape household first arose, stated Rick Potts, who directs the Human Origins Program on the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Museum of Pure Historical past and was not concerned within the examine.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
