Gigantopithecus

‘Jungle jungle baat Chali hai pata Chala hai, chaddi pehen ke Phool Kila hai’, the moment everyone read this phrase, all we could think about was Mowgli from the jungle book, right? Now how is the cartoon jungle book and Mowgli related to the Gigantopithecus? Well, does anyone remember the giant ape named King Louie in the 2015 Disney live-action movie the Jungle Book? In that movie, Mowgli is arrested by monkeys and lemurs and was presented in front of the giant ape called King Louie. Well, we are going to discuss king Louie who was been imagined as the giant ape himself, Gigantopithecus.

Gigantopithecus belongs to the early to Middle Pleistocene of Southern China and it is in fact an extinct genus of the ape. Gigantopithecus is represented by one species and that is Gigantopithecus blacki. Fossils of the gigantopithecus ape have also been found in Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia. The first remains of the gigantopithecus ape was a two-third molar tooth that was discovered by an anthropologist in the year 1935.

The initial mandible and over 1,000 teeth were discovered in Liucheng in 1956, and countless more remains have since been discovered in at least 16 locations. Only teeth and four mandibles are known at this time, and additional skeletal components were most likely eaten by porcupines before they could fossilise. Gigantopithecus was originally considered to be a hominin, a member of the human line, but it is now thought to be closely related to orangutans, who are classed in the subfamily Ponginae.

As the gigantopithecus fossils have been found and it’s an extinct animal many of the anthropologists do believe that it was a massive, gorilla-like ape that could easily weigh around 300 kilograms when it was alive. The gigantopithecus species may have been sexually dimorphic, with the males being much larger than females. Gigantopithecus had the thickest enamel of any ape by absolute measure, up to 6 mm in certain spots, but was only moderately thick, when tooth size was considered.

It is believed that like all the apes the gigantopithecus might have been herbivorous in nature and mostly ate forest plants with the jaws that they used to grind, cut, and crush the tough fibrous of the plants. The gigantopithecus exist predominantly in subtropical to tropical forests and became extinct around 300,000 years ago, most likely as a result of climate change and perhaps archaic human activities. In cryptozoology circles, Gigantopithecus is thought to be the Tibetan yeti or the American bigfoot, both of which are human-like monsters in local legend.

In this article, we are going to discuss the gigantopithecus, its description, habitat, distribution, gigantopithecus fossils, gigantopithecus extinction reason, and also few of the most important questions related to the gigantopithecus will also be answered. 

Classification of the Gigantopithecus

• In the year 1935, a palaeontologist by the name of von Koenigswald had considered Gigantopithecus to be closely related to the Late Miocene Sivapithecus which has its origins related to India. 

• Robert Broom, a palaeontologist from South Africa, proposed in 1939 that Gigantopithecus was closely related to Australopithecus which are considered to be the last common ancestor of humans and other apes. Franz Weidenreich, a Jewish German anthropologist, used the term "Gigantanthropus" to designate Gigantopithecus as a human progenitor in 1946, thinking that the human lineage passed through a giant period. He proposed a lineage from Gigantopithecus to the Javan ape Meganthropus, through "Pithecanthropus," to "Javanthropus," and ultimately Aboriginal Australians, claiming that the teeth are more comparable to those of modern humans and Homo erectus.

• Von Koenigswald agreed that Gigantopithecus was a hominin in 1952, but thought it was an offshoot rather than an ancestor of humans. For the following three decades, scientists debated whether Gigantopithecus was a hominin or not, until the Out of Africa theory defeated the Out of Asia and multiregional ideas, decisively establishing Africa as humanity's beginnings.

• Paleontologists Elwyn L. Simons and Shiv Raj Kumar Chopra identified an 8.6 million-year-old mandible from the Shivalik Hills in northern India as "G. bilaspurensis" in 1969, believing it was an ancestor of g blacki. This looked a lot like a molar unearthed in Pakistan's Pothohar Plateau in 1915 and labelled Dryopithecus giganteus. In 1950, Von Koenigswald placed D. giganteus into its own genus, Indopithecus, but American anthropologists Frederick Szalay and Eric Delson reclassified it as G. giganteus in 1979, and Indopithecus was revived in 2003 by Australian archaeologist David W. Cameron. Gigantopithecus giganteus is currently regarded as a synonym for "G. bilaspurensis."

• The gigantopithecus has now been classified under the subfamily of Ponginae which are a close ally with Sivapithecus and Indopithecus. Due to this reason, the gigantopithecus are considered to be closely related to the orangutans.

• Gigantopithecus is most closely related to the Chinese Lufengpithecus, which became extinct 4 million years before Gigantopithecus, according to Chinese palaeoanthropologist Yingqi Zhang and American anthropologist Terry Harrison.

• In 2019, peptide sequencing of dentine and enamel proteins from a Gigantopithecus molar from Chifeng Cave revealed that Gigantopithecus and orangutans shared a common ancestor about 12–10 million years ago in the Middle to Late Miocene, assuming the current mutation rate in orangutans has remained constant. Their common progenitor would have been an ape during the Miocene ape radiation.

Gigantopithecus Description 

• Due to the unavailability of enough fossils of this animal, the Gigantopithecus's method of locomotion is not certain as there are no pelvis or leg bones have been found yet. As it has been highly thought to be from the ape family, many believe that it walked on all of its fours same as the modern gorillas and the chimpanzees but there are theories that also suggest that it had adapted bipedal locomotion (movement by the means of two rare limbs or legs).

• Based on the fossils that have been collected an adult male gigantopithecus size is believed to be or it stood about 3 meters tall and gigantopithecus weight could be in the range of 540 to 600 kilograms with the largest male possible could have weighed around 900 kilograms. Sexual dimorphism was seen in these species and that is the reason that the males were taller and heavier than the females. 

• Due to its size, this species is believed to be about four times heavier than the modern gorilla and seven to ten times heavier than the orangutan which is believed to be the closest relatives to the Gigantopithecus and hence these species are sometimes referred to as orangutan gigantopithecus. The large gigantopithecus might have had an arm span of over 4 meters. Some suggest that mature male Gigantopithecus blacki (g blacki)were significantly smaller, at about 1.8–2 meters in height and 180–300 kg in weight, due to wide interspecies variations in the connection between tooth and body size.

• Because of the fragmented nature of gigantopithecus bones remains, its appearance is unknown or we could say that it is not completely known to us. Because of its apparently similar lifestyle, it may have resembled current gorillas. However, other experts believe it resembled the orangutan, its closest modern cousin. According to the most recent estimations, Gigantopithecus had few or no adversaries when fully grown. Big cats, huge constrictor snakes, crocodiles, machairodontinae, hyenas, and Homo erectus, on the other hand, may have preyed on younger, weaker, or damaged gigantopithecus individuals.

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Gigantopithecus Teeth and Jaws 

• The dental formula for Gigantopithecus is 2.1.2.32.1.2.3 . They had two incisors, one canine, two premolars and three molars in each part of their jaws for both of their jaws. Because of their general stoutness and absence of honing facets (which keep them sharp), the canines have been hypothesized to have functioned as premolars and molars. The incisors of Gigantopithecus are smaller than those of other apes with larger molars. An underbite is indicated by wearing on the tongue-side of the incisors, which can extend as far as the tooth root.

• The overall anatomy of the mandibular and the tooth wearing suggest a side-to-side movement of the jaws while chewing. Long tooth roots are present for both incisors and canines which is at least double the length of the tooth crown which is a visible part of the tooth. From what is assumed all these tooths are very closely packed together. The teeth have appeared to increase in size as time progressed and the Gigantopithecus molars are considered to be the biggest of any known ape that has been ever recorded. 

• The premolars are tall, with two tooth roots on the lower and three on the upper. The lower molars have a low crest, are long and thin, and have a waist at the midline which is considered to be more apparent in the lower molars which along with low-lying and bulbous cusps and rounded-off crests.

• The molars' tooth enamel is the thickest of any known ape, averaging 2.5 to 2.9 mm in three distinct molars and nearly 6 mm on the tongue-side cusps of an upper molar. The gigantopithecus molars are theorized to have a large and flat grinding surface with an even enamel surface and short dentine horns. 

Gigantopithecus Diet 

• The Gigantopithecus has been considered to be a herbivorous ape. A carbon-13 isotope analysis was done which heavily suggests that the species had consumed C3 plants such as leaves, fruits, and other forest plants. Gigantopithecus' strong mandible suggests it was capable of withstanding significant stresses when chewing difficult or hard meals. Modern apes that consume soft leaves or seeds, on the other hand, have the same mandibular structure. Pitting is a sound that is produced by chewing tiny, hard items is far less common in Gigantopithecus teeth than in orangutans and is more akin to that observed in chimps, suggesting a similar specialized diet.

• Chewing, smashing, and processing of bulky and fibrous materials might be indicated by the molar-like premolars, big molars, and long-rooted cheeked teeth. A diet of rough things, such as soil particles on meals acquired close or on the ground, would imply thick enamel. Similarly, oxygen isotope research shows that Gigantopithecus ate more low-lying vegetation than orangutans, such as stems, roots, and grasses. Tuber consumption is indicated by dental calculus. The usual savanna grasses do not appear to have been eaten by Gigantopithecus.

• A palaeontologist had thought that Gigantopithecus was a cave-dwelling predator and hauled these creatures in after discovering hoofed animal bones in a cave located in an apparently inaccessible mountain in 1957. Because the tooth architecture of this species is compatible with herbivory, this theory is no longer deemed plausible.

• Tim D. White, an American palaeoanthropologist, established parallels between the jaws and teeth of Gigantopithecus and those of the giant panda in 1975, suggesting that they both specialized in bamboo. Some later researchers agreed, however, Gigantopithecus' stronger enamel and hypsodonty might indicate that these teeth had a different purpose.

Palaeoecology of the Gigantopithecus

• The remains of the gigantopithecus are mostly found in the subtropical evergreen broadleaf forests of Southern China except for the Hainan rovinces which are believed to have had a tropical rainforest. 

• Gigantopithecus lived in a thick, humid, closed-canopy forest, according to carbon and oxygen isotope analyses of Early Pleistocene enamel. A deciduous forest and evergreen forest characterized by birch, oak, and chinkapin, as well as various low-lying plants and ferns, could be found in Queque Cave.

• One of the most notable mammalian faunal groupings of the Early Pleistocene of southern China is the "Gigantopithecus fauna," which comprises tropical or subtropical forest species. Between 2.6 and 1.8 million years ago, 1.8 to 1.2 million years ago, and 1.2 to 0.8 million years ago, this group was split into three phases.

• More ancient Neogene creatures such as the elephant Sinomastodon, the chalicothere Hesperotherium, the pig Dicoryphochoerus, the mouse-deer Dorcabune, and the deer Cervicitis mark the early period.

• The arrival of the panda Ailuropoda wulingshanensis, the dhole Cuon antiquus, and the tapir Tapirus sinensis represent the intermediate stage. More typical Middle Pleistocene species, such as the panda Ailuropoda baconi and the elephant Stegodon, may be found in the late period.

• Gigantopithecus appears to have wiped out some 300,000 years ago, probably as a result of the Middle Pleistocene's southerly retreat of forest and prime habitat, induced by increased seasonality and monsoon strength, as well as a cooling trend.

• Until the late Pleistocene, Southeast Asia's major environment was savanna. Immigrant H. Erectus is thought to have had a role in the extinction of the species. Human activity in southern China may be traced back to 800,000 years ago, but it did not become widespread until after the demise of Gigantopithecus, so it's unclear if pressures like resource rivalry or overhunting had a role.

Gigantopithecus Extinction

• The gigantopithecus is considered to be the biggest primate that ever lived and walked on earth. As it lived 3 million years ago and only the teeth of the gigantopithecus have been found all around the world, it is nearly impossible to accurately say the reason why the giant ape went extinct and that is where theories come into the picture. There are many theories regarding the extinction of gigantopithecus blacki such as the common one which suggests that the ape might have died due to its giant size and limited diet. 

• Very little is known about the Gigantopithecus blacki as we have little evidence or fossil related to this ape but it is clear from what all have been collected which clearly states that the Gigantopithecus blacki is very closely related to the orangutans and they were 10 feet tall and could have weighed between 600 to 900 kilograms. Sexual dimorphism was seen and as a result of that, the male was larger and heavier than the females. 

• There are new analyses that suggest that the gigantopithecus ape lived and ate exclusively in the forest regions and when around 100,000 years ago the forest habitat shrank, the gigantic ape may not have been able to adjust to the little amount of food which it got to eat and also reproduce and that might the reason it went extinct.  

• It was discovered that G. blacki only ate and probably resided in wooded areas. The carbon ratios of the cave's other animals, on the other hand, showed that they were consuming a mix of savanna and forest foods. This implies that Southeast Asia was a mix of forest and savanna at the time the giant ape existed. As a result, Gigantopithecus blacki lived near large expanses of grassland but did not graze in them. The big animals' nutritional restrictions, along with their enormous size, may have doomed them.

• It is also theorized that each time the climate got cooler and drier, the first region shrank, and there due to climate change there were not enough trees left and that heavily affected the population of the g blacki. About 10 thousand years ago, a cold snap occurred and that was one thing that the giant apes could not handle and caused the extinction of the Gigantopithecus. This hypothesis is termed the "population bottlenecks" which basically means that as the food resources reduce it heavily affects the animals with a big metabolism. 

• There are many myths, tails, and stories that try to explain the definite reason for the extinction of the Gigantopithecus but due to lack of evidence and fossils, the palaeontologist does not have any proof.