Giant ape species in prehistoric Southeast Asia

Gigantopithecus blacki, the giant ape that lived 9 million years ago, is 3 meters tall and weighs 6 quintals, is considered the largest primate ever to exist on Earth.

The reconstructed figure of Gigantopithecus blacki.(Photo: Live Sience).

The scientists are studying Gigantopithecus blacki , the ape with shaggy fur, walking on two feet and about twice the size of an adult. This species lived in the forests of Southeast Asia before extinction hundreds of thousands of years ago. The research, published today in the journal Nature, aims to determine the position of G. blacki in primate pedigree trees.

G. blacki is much bigger than the great apes that live today. It is about 3 meters high and weighs up to 600kg. However, fossils of giant apes are rare and hard to find. The researchers only scooped a few thousand teeth and four incomplete jaw bone pieces, leading to many questions about the evolution and shape of extinct apes.

Gigantopithecus blacki bone fossils.(Photo: Live Science).

However, Enrico Cappellini, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, and his colleagues found a new way to restore the protein chain from tooth enamel. They tested the technique on G. blacki's 1.9 million-year-old molar teeth, then compared it with what was found in the database of protein chains of living great apes.

"We observed some differences in protein chains , " Cappellini said. "We think the lower the number of differences, the closer the two species are."

The researchers found that G. blacki apes are not closely related to humans like chimpanzees and bonobos. Instead, the most common G. blacki-like protein is the modern orangutans. G. blacki separated from their relatives from 10 to 12 million years ago.

The success of the new method enhances the ability to study protein chains in other extinct primates from the tropics. But despite evidence confirming the close evolutionary relationship between G. blacki and orangutans, the data doesn't help scientists plot the shape of the ape.

1. Monsters ruled the prehistoric world
2. The largest animals have gone extinct