http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...-panda-ape.html
"New fossils suggest ancient pandas competed with the largest known apes for habitat and food nearly half a million years ago on the tropical coast of southern China, scientists say.
The 400,000-year-old fossils of a giant panda were uncovered alongside the remains of a titan-sized, ancient ape called Gigantopithecus blacki, said Huang Wanbo, a paleontologist at Beijing's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
Excavated from a limestone cave on the island province of Hainan, the fossils suggest that both the giant pandas and the Giganto apes survived on a mostly bamboo diet, said Huang.
Hainan island was a bamboo-covered, hilly peninsula 400,000 years ago, Huang said. Today it is an island separated from the Chinese mainland by a 15-mile-wide (25-kilometer-wide) strait."....................................
........."The Giganto ape became extinct about 300,000 years ago, after about a half-million years of overlap with early humans, according to Ciochon.
Huang said he believes the ape lost out in a three-way struggle with giant pandas and early humans over food and habitat.
Ancient panda fossils have been found before near Giganto ape remnants, and early human fossils in China have been found in the vicinity of ancient pandas.
If early humans—armed with primitive weapons like stone axes and fire—migrated like the panda through what is now southern China, they likely had contact with the giant apes, Huang said. "
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Among other things I found interesting in this article is the date given for the extinction of Giganto, 300,000 years ago, rather than the often bandied about date (on this forum) of one million years. In actuality, 300K years is a drop in the bucket for a species to survive and surprise modern science.
Full Version: Giganto Competed With Pandas For Bamboo
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20..._giant_ape.html
Giant Asian Ape and Humans Coexisted, Might Have Interacted
Ben Harder
for National Geographic News
December 8, 2005
Stalking through the forest, an early human hunter might have glimpsed an oversize ape through a thicket of bamboo.
We may never know the outcome of such a prehistoric encounter—or even if a meeting occurred. The mysterious ape, called Gigantopithecus blacki, has long since vanished from the Earth, and so has the early human species.
But researchers have determined that the giant ape—which might have been the closest thing to a real King Kong—did in fact live at the same time and in roughly the same place as early humans.
In China 300,000 years ago the two species might well have crossed paths, according to W. Jack Rink of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
A German paleontologist discovered Gigantopithecus in 1935 when he picked up a strange, heavy tooth in a Chinese apothecary. It was labeled as a "dragon tooth."
Since then researchers have found additional remains of the ape, which they've used to make guesses about its size, diet, and when and how it lived. But experts are still left with many unanswered questions.
"We're sort of dealing with the mystery ape," said Rick Potts, a paleoanthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
"We know so little about Gigantopithecus, largely because its [remains consist of only] three mandibles [jaw bones] and hundreds of teeth," he said.
Gigantopithecus fossils that are 7 or 8 million years old have been found in modern-day India and Pakistan. Remains less than 2 million years old, meanwhile, have turned up in China and Southeast Asia.
Given the limited fossil record, scientists debate how the ape evolved, when it died out, and precisely how big it was.
"There's this mythology that arose, largely because of the name, that it's got to be huge," Potts said. "Some people say, Oh, geez, it must have stood seven feet [two meters] tall." ..........................................
..................................."Using a technique that calculates a fossil's age based on the electron spin, or magnetism, in minerals, Rink recently put an age of about 300,000 years on some of the remains.
While modern people weren't on the scene at that time, early humans called Homo erectus were living in the region.
"[Early] humans were living down in the river valleys," Rink said. "Gigantopithecus was living in the tropical forest at higher elevations. It's likely that Gigantopithecus and humans saw each other in the landscape."
Other experts are more cautious about that conclusion.
"They weren't living side by side," the University of Iowa's Ciochon noted. Tropical forest "is not the primary habitat for humans."
Potts of the Smithsonian said, "Whether they actually frequently saw each other is still unclear."
Nevertheless, Ciochon says, Rink's new results reflect the youngest date yet assigned to Gigantopithecus and may be from close to the time when the species died out.
Even if encounters between species did occur, it was probably environmental change—not hungry humans—that wiped out the giant apes, Ciochon says.
"I think they were pretty much immune to predators," he said, "because they were just too big."
Giant Asian Ape and Humans Coexisted, Might Have Interacted
Ben Harder
for National Geographic News
December 8, 2005
Stalking through the forest, an early human hunter might have glimpsed an oversize ape through a thicket of bamboo.
We may never know the outcome of such a prehistoric encounter—or even if a meeting occurred. The mysterious ape, called Gigantopithecus blacki, has long since vanished from the Earth, and so has the early human species.
But researchers have determined that the giant ape—which might have been the closest thing to a real King Kong—did in fact live at the same time and in roughly the same place as early humans.
In China 300,000 years ago the two species might well have crossed paths, according to W. Jack Rink of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
A German paleontologist discovered Gigantopithecus in 1935 when he picked up a strange, heavy tooth in a Chinese apothecary. It was labeled as a "dragon tooth."
Since then researchers have found additional remains of the ape, which they've used to make guesses about its size, diet, and when and how it lived. But experts are still left with many unanswered questions.
"We're sort of dealing with the mystery ape," said Rick Potts, a paleoanthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
"We know so little about Gigantopithecus, largely because its [remains consist of only] three mandibles [jaw bones] and hundreds of teeth," he said.
Gigantopithecus fossils that are 7 or 8 million years old have been found in modern-day India and Pakistan. Remains less than 2 million years old, meanwhile, have turned up in China and Southeast Asia.
Given the limited fossil record, scientists debate how the ape evolved, when it died out, and precisely how big it was.
"There's this mythology that arose, largely because of the name, that it's got to be huge," Potts said. "Some people say, Oh, geez, it must have stood seven feet [two meters] tall." ..........................................
..................................."Using a technique that calculates a fossil's age based on the electron spin, or magnetism, in minerals, Rink recently put an age of about 300,000 years on some of the remains.
While modern people weren't on the scene at that time, early humans called Homo erectus were living in the region.
"[Early] humans were living down in the river valleys," Rink said. "Gigantopithecus was living in the tropical forest at higher elevations. It's likely that Gigantopithecus and humans saw each other in the landscape."
Other experts are more cautious about that conclusion.
"They weren't living side by side," the University of Iowa's Ciochon noted. Tropical forest "is not the primary habitat for humans."
Potts of the Smithsonian said, "Whether they actually frequently saw each other is still unclear."
Nevertheless, Ciochon says, Rink's new results reflect the youngest date yet assigned to Gigantopithecus and may be from close to the time when the species died out.
Even if encounters between species did occur, it was probably environmental change—not hungry humans—that wiped out the giant apes, Ciochon says.
"I think they were pretty much immune to predators," he said, "because they were just too big."
QUOTE (Incorrigible1 @ Dec 29 2007, 05:33 PM) 
"There's this mythology that arose, largely because of the name, that it's got to be huge," Potts said. "Some people say, Oh, geez, it must have stood seven feet [two meters] tall." ..........................................
..................................."Using a technique that calculates a fossil's age based on the electron spin, or magnetism, in minerals, Rink recently put an age of about 300,000 years on some of the remains.
While modern people weren't on the scene at that time, early humans called Homo erectus were living in the region.
"[Early] humans were living down in the river valleys," Rink said. "Gigantopithecus was living in the tropical forest at higher elevations. It's likely that Gigantopithecus and humans saw each other in the landscape."
Other experts are more cautious about that conclusion.
"They weren't living side by side," the University of Iowa's Ciochon noted. Tropical forest "is not the primary habitat for humans."
Potts of the Smithsonian said, "Whether they actually frequently saw each other is still unclear."
Nevertheless, Ciochon says, Rink's new results reflect the youngest date yet assigned to Gigantopithecus and may be from close to the time when the species died out.
Even if encounters between species did occur, it was probably environmental change—not hungry humans—that wiped out the giant apes, Ciochon says.
"I think they were pretty much immune to predators," he said, "because they were just too big."
..................................."Using a technique that calculates a fossil's age based on the electron spin, or magnetism, in minerals, Rink recently put an age of about 300,000 years on some of the remains.
While modern people weren't on the scene at that time, early humans called Homo erectus were living in the region.
"[Early] humans were living down in the river valleys," Rink said. "Gigantopithecus was living in the tropical forest at higher elevations. It's likely that Gigantopithecus and humans saw each other in the landscape."
Other experts are more cautious about that conclusion.
"They weren't living side by side," the University of Iowa's Ciochon noted. Tropical forest "is not the primary habitat for humans."
Potts of the Smithsonian said, "Whether they actually frequently saw each other is still unclear."
Nevertheless, Ciochon says, Rink's new results reflect the youngest date yet assigned to Gigantopithecus and may be from close to the time when the species died out.
Even if encounters between species did occur, it was probably environmental change—not hungry humans—that wiped out the giant apes, Ciochon says.
"I think they were pretty much immune to predators," he said, "because they were just too big."
well i think this is pretty good news for the people who belive in the Bigfoot to Gigantopithecus theroy , the parts i bolded are the things that seemed to stick out with a bigfoot connection to me.
the first one is the reashercers saying it probaly stood about 7 feet tall , the size that bigfoot witnesses usally say he his.
the second is that this is the youngest time people have said that it died out. if this thing died out 300K years ago then theres a better chance that its still alive then the 1,000,000 years thing.
Somehow I vote the victory for the Pandas. They're well...cute!
QUOTE (capoeiranger @ Dec 30 2007, 03:01 PM)
Somehow I vote the victory for the Pandas. They're well...cute!
Kong pwns that bear!
although that is one pissed off bear! D:
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