WASHINGTON (AP) — An ancient species of great ape likely faced extinction hundreds of thousands of years ago when climate change pushed its favorite dry-season fruits out of reach, scientists reported Wednesday.
The species Gigantopithecus blacki, which once lived in southern China, is the largest great ape known to scientists – with a height of 3 meters and a weight of up to 295 kilograms.
But his size could also have been a weakness.
“It's just a huge animal – really, really big,” said Renaud Joannes-Boyau, a researcher at Australia's Southern Cross University and co-author of the study published in the journal Nature. “When food becomes scarce, it is so large that it cannot climb trees to explore new food sources.”
The giant apes, which probably resembled modern orangutans, survived for about two million years in the forested plains of China's Guangxi region. They followed a vegetarian diet and ate fruits and flowers in tropical forests until the environment began to change.
Researchers analyzed pollen and sediment samples preserved in Guangxi caves, as well as fossil teeth, to find out why forests produced less fruit for about 600,000 years as the region experienced more dry seasons.
The giant apes did not disappear quickly, but probably died out between 215,000 and 295,000 years ago, the researchers found.
While smaller monkeys may have been able to climb trees to forage for other food, the researchers' analysis shows that the giant monkeys ate more tree bark, reeds and other non-nutritious foods.
“As the forest changed, there was not enough food that the species preferred,” said co-author Zhang Yingqi of the Chinese Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
Most of what scientists know about the extinct great apes comes from studying fossil teeth and four large lower jaw bones, all found in southern China. No complete skeletons have been found.
Fossil finds show that several dozen species of great apes lived in Africa, Europe and Asia between 2 and 22 million years ago. Today there are only gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and humans.
While humans first appeared in Africa, scientists don't know which continent the great ape family first emerged on, said Rick Potts, who directs the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and was not involved in the study.
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