Gigantopithecus

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Crazy Creatures Gigantopithecus Gigantopithecus was the largest Primate Time: 3 Million to that has ever lived! It lived between 3 100,000 years ago million and 100,000 years ago in Vietnam, China and Indonesia. Period: Pleistocene Gigantopithecus was nearly 3 meters tall and weighed up to 600kg – four times The larger than even the biggest Gorilla! We can reconstruct what they looked like from Biggest their closest living relatives – Orangutans! Ape Your task 1: Draw Gigantopithecus! It had: A strong, wide jaw Big, chunky teeth Long legs and even longer arms Shaggy fur Your task 2: Gigantopithecus means “really big Ape” in latin. Can you name any other apes? Creature Fact! Your task 3: Gigantopithecus had strong teeth adapted to chewing tough foods. What kinds of strong, tough foods might Palaeontologists have it have eaten? Another large animal from China is found thousands of famous for eating tough food! What is it Gigantopithecus teeth. and what does it eat? They were so tough they've survived when other bits havent! Your task 4: Gigantopithecus may have looked and lived a bit like an orangutan. Can you find four facts about Orangutans which might be similar to how Gigantopithecus lived? 1. 2. 3. 4. Your task 5: Gigantopithecus lived at the same time, and the same place as a species of human – Homo erectus and maybe even our ancestors! How do you think these early humans felt when they saw a Gigantopithecus? Your task 6: Most Gigantopithecus fossils that have been found are of teeth and jaws. What kind of things can you tell about an animal by looking at its teeth? What about by looking at your teeth? 1. 2. 3. 4. Research key words: Ape Ponginae Megadontia CRAZYOMETER! How weird do you think this creature was? Boring! Yeah Ok A bit weird Really weird! Woah! By Discott - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23062896.

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Book Section Reprint the STRUGGLE for TROGLODYTES1
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example, Gigantopithecus). The dietary habits of extinct and extant primate species provide Gigantopithecus: A Reappraisal of additional insights into the socioecological nature Dietary Habits of the species. Differing dietary adaptations are paItially responsible for many of the behavioural and ecological differences that separate extant taxa, and by extension, must obviously affect the differentiation of fossil taxa. Aspects of diet, Introduction living or fossil, can be used to infer metabolic One of the many problems central to rate, body mass, ecological niche and ranging paleoplimatology and paleoanthropology patterns, among other things. This paper, adopts concerns the reconstruction of dietary a broad comparative approach in order to more behaviours and adaptations in fossil species. accurately reconstruct the diet of one of Such endeavours become particularly difficult paleoplimatology's greatest enigmas, the fossil when the fossil species has left no living Miocene ape, Gigantopithecus. descendents. It thus becomes vital to identify plausible living analogs for the purpose of History of Discovery & Taxonomic inferring possible behaviours in the fossil Considerations species. Unfortunately, there are times when a For thousands of years, Chinese chemists proper living analog does not exist (for have been using "dragon's teeth" as medicinal T()TI':~I yol II :21111:2-:21111.; Coprrighl II) :211111'1'( l'1V.\!: The U\X'() Journal of .\nlhropologl' ingredients. In 1935 a Dutch paleontologist, sizes and shapes of jaws and teeth, and the G.H.R. von Koenigswald, discovered these thickness and stlUcture of tooth enamel" (Ungar massive molars within Chinese pharmacies. 2002:261). Second, material that pel1ains to the Following the discovery, von Koenigswald actual foods consumed by the individual identified the molars as belonging to a new, represents nonadapti ve evidence.
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