But more than a million years ago, an ape as big as a polar bear lived in South Asia, until going extinct 300,000 years ago. Scientists first learned of Gigantopithecus in 1935, when Ralph von ...

By Jack Tamisiea Standing nearly as tall as a basketball hoop and weighing as much as a grizzly bear, Gigantopithecus blacki was the greatest ape to ever live. For more than a million years during ...

A giant ape known as Gigantopithecus blacki survived for two million years in the dense forests of China, munching on fruits and leaves. A group of Gigantopithecus blacki, the largest primate to ...

German-Dutch paleontologist G.H.R. von Koenigswald first identified Gigantopithecus blacki about a century ago from large teeth sold as medicinal “dragon bones” at a Hong Kong apothecary.

Gigantopithecus blacki, which stood 10 feet tall and weighed up to 660 pounds, thrived in the forests of southern Asia until a little more than 200,000 years ago. Exactly why the great ape died ...

In late December 2023, a photograph went viral on social media, allegedly depicting Gigantopithecus, "an extinct genus of ape that existed from two million years to as recently as 100,000 years ago." ...

The new extinction date comes from new analyses of fossils of Gigantopithecus blacki, as well as on the sediments of about a dozen caves in southern China where the ape once dwelled. Instead of ...