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English: This is a comparison graph comparing the hight of a 1.8 meter tall human male with Gigantopithecus species. This graph is based on orangutan proportions in a bipedal stance. It is most likely that Gigantopithecus would have spent most of its time in a quadrupedal stance on all fours.
Gigantopithecus (/ d ʒ aɪ ˌ ɡ æ n t oʊ p ɪ ˈ θ i k ə s, ˈ p ɪ θ ɪ k ə s, d ʒ ɪ-/ jy-gan-toh-pi-thee-kuhs, pith-i-kuhs, ji-; [2] lit. ' giant ape ') is an extinct genus of ape that lived in southern China from 2 million to approximately 300,000 to 200,000 years ago during the Early to Middle Pleistocene, represented by one species, Gigantopithecus blacki. [3]
The extinction's extreme bias towards larger animals further supports a relationship with human activity rather than climate change. [150] There is evidence that the average size of mammalian fauna declined over the course of the Quaternary, [ 151 ] a phenomenon that was likely linked to disproportionate hunting of large animals by humans.
Without the assumption that Gigantopithecus and H. erectus lived together, everything changed: if early humans were not part of the Stegodon–Ailuropoda fauna, I had to envision a chimpanzee-sized ape in its place — either a descendant of Lufengpithecus, or a previously unknown ape genus.
Von Koenigswald studied the relationships between African, Asian and European hominoid fossils attributed to Ramapithecus or its close allies such as Graecopithecus of Greece and Kenyapithecus of Fort Ternan, Kenya. It was his opinion that the Indian form was a hominid and the African form a pongid.
By some estimates, Gigantopithecus reached up to 10 feet (3 meters) tall, making it not only the largest-known ape but the biggest primate, the mammalian group that includes lemurs, monkeys, apes ...
Standing at 9 feet tall and weighing up to 660 pounds, Gigantopithecus blacki was the largest primate to walk the Earth. The giant ape — an herbivore with a fondness for fruit — appeared in ...
Compared to humans, they have proportionally long arms, a male orangutan having an arm span of about 2 m (6 ft 7 in), and short legs. They are covered in long reddish hair that starts out bright orange and darkens to maroon or chocolate with age, while the skin is grey-black.