Giant apes extinct likely due to climate change – study
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An ancient species of giant apes that lived in China until the late Pleistocene may have become extinct due to climate change.
In a study published in the journal Nature, the death of the species Gigantopithecus blacki is called mysterious. It was one of the few Asian great apes that became extinct in the last 2.6 million years. Others, including the orangutan, have survived to this day, the Associated Press writes.
The giant apes, which probably resembled modern orangutans, lived about 2 million years ago in the forested plains of China’s Guangxi region. They ate fruits and flowers in rainforests until the environment began to change, scientists say.
The height of Gigantopithecus blacki reached three meters, and the weight – 295 kilograms.
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“It’s just a huge animal. When food became scarce, she could not climb trees in search of new types of food“, says Renaud Joanne-Boyeau, a researcher at Southern Cross University in Australia and co-author of the study.
Therefore, the giant apes began to eat more tree bark, reeds and other non-nutritious food.
The researchers note that the giant apes probably became extinct around 215,000 to 295,000 years ago.
Most of the information about the extinct great apes has been obtained by studying fossil teeth and large bones of the lower jaw found in southern China. They did not find whole skeletons.
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