The Real King Kong Went Extinct Due to Climate Change

The largest ape on Earth went extinct about 100,000 years ago because it could not adapt to eating grass after climate changes destroyed its favorite food, forest fruits. According to The Guardian, Gigantopithecus weighed five times that of an adult human and stood about 3 meters tall. This massive creature lived in the semi-tropical forests of southern China and Southeast Asia nearly a million years ago. So far, almost no information has been obtained about the anatomy and behaviors of this animal. Only four parts of its lower jaw fossil are available. Hervo Bockrens, a researcher at the University of Tübingen in Germany, says, "These partial remains are very insufficient to say whether this animal was bipedal or quadrupedal and what its body parts looked like." Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reported that scientists at the Center for Human Evolution and Paleontology in Tübingen, along with the Frankfurt Institute for Research, examined the remaining tooth enamel of this animal to show that this order of animals was limited to forested areas. The size of this creature varied from 1.8 meters to 3 meters, and its weight ranged from 220 kg to 500 kg. There are several theories regarding the diet of this ape. Some scientists believe it was completely herbivorous, while others think it was also carnivorous. The orangutan is the closest relative of Gigantopithecus, but it is unclear whether Gigantopithecus had a reddish-golden skin color like the orangutan or was black like a gorilla. By testing slight changes in the carbon isotopes found in the tooth fossil, scientists showed that this ancient animal lived solely in forests and was a strict herbivore. These characteristics did not pose a problem for Gigantopithecus until the Ice Age affected the Earth from about 2.6 million years ago to 12,000 years ago. According to Bockrens, nature, evolution, and perhaps the refusal to eat new foods led to the extinction of the massive ape. He states, "Gigantopithecus likely required a large amount of food due to its large size. During the Pleistocene - the fourth geological period that lasted from 1.8 million years ago to 10,000 years ago - forested areas were converted to grasslands one after another, which had insufficient food reserves." The findings of this research, which is set to be published in a specialized scientific journal called Quaternary International, state that "Gigantopithecus likely lacked ecological flexibility and did not have the physiological ability to endure hardships and food shortages."