See the Largest Primate on Earth
The largest primate on Earth. Paleontologist Ralph von Koenigswald originally recognized Gigantopithecus in 1935 as a result of a distinctive dental specimen.
The strange and enormous simian is said to have existed between two million years ago and around 300,000 years ago in the woods of modern-day China, India, and Vietnam.
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The ape grew to huge proportions that surpassed those of real gorillas and are believed to have been a herbivore based on microscopic plant fossils discovered in certain teeth.
The closest extant relative of Gigantopithecus blacki, the orangutan, also belongs to the same group, according to a palaeoproteomic investigation.
The gigantopithecus went extinct, according to scientists, because its habitat transitioned from a forest to a savannah during certain glaciations in the Pleistocene or Ice age.
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