{"id":5072,"date":"2024-01-24T09:53:42","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T02:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/?p=5072"},"modified":"2024-01-24T09:53:42","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T02:53:42","slug":"what-happened-to-the-worlds-greatest-ape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/what-happened-to-the-worlds-greatest-ape\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happened to the World&#8217;s Greatest Ape"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>TLDR<\/strong>: Gigantopithecus, the Ice Age&#8217;s largest ape, thrived in dense forests but vanished due to climate change and habitat loss, echoing today&#8217;s orangutan crisis.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This article is a summary of a You Tube video &#8220;What Happened to the World&#8217;s Greatest Ape?&#8221; by PBS Eons<br \/>\n<iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1qW256pUdYg?si=T70ODyyLcTFNQ4Px\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Key Takeaways:<\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Gigantopithecus Discovery<\/strong>: Ralph von Koenigswald discovered Gigantopithecus&#8217; teeth in a Hong Kong drug store in 1935, initially mistaken as &#8220;dragon teeth&#8221; used in traditional Chinese medicine.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Physical Attributes<\/strong>: Gigantopithecus, the largest known great ape, stood about 3 meters tall, weighed up to 500 kilograms, and lived during the Pleistocene epoch.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fossil Records<\/strong>: The only fossil evidence of Gigantopithecus consists of jawbones and thousands of teeth; no other parts of its body have been found.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Species and Timeline<\/strong>: There were three species of Gigantopithecus, with Gigantopithecus blacki being the largest and most recent, living from 2 million to 100 thousand years ago.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dietary Habits<\/strong>: Its large, flat teeth, and strong jaws suggest a diet of tough, fibrous plants, including possibly bamboo, seeds, and fruit.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Relation to Modern Apes<\/strong>: Analysis of teeth enamel and dentin structure indicates Gigantopithecus was closely related to orangutans, despite its ground-dwelling nature, contrasting with the arboreal orangutans.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Environmental Adaptation<\/strong>: Isotope analysis of its teeth enamel reveals Gigantopithecus fed on C3 plants, suggesting it lived in cool, humid forests.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Habitat Preference<\/strong>: Fossil evidence from other contemporary species indicates Gigantopithecus preferred dense forest habitats, avoiding open grasslands.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Extinction Factors<\/strong>: Climate changes during the Pleistocene, with fluctuating ice ages and habitats, likely led to the extinction of Gigantopithecus as forests shrank and grasslands expanded.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Modern Relevance<\/strong>: The story of Gigantopithecus parallels the current plight of orangutans, with habitat loss threatening their existence, highlighting the importance of understanding and preserving specialized species.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gigantopithecus, the Ice Age&#8217;s largest ape, thrived in dense forests but vanished due to climate change and habitat loss, echoing today&#8217;s orangutan crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","category-44","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5074,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5072\/revisions\/5074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}