WASHINGTON (AP) — An ancient species of great apes was likely driven to extinction hundreds of thousands of years ago when climate change made its favorite fruits out of reach during dry seasons, researchers reported Wednesday. scientists.
The species Gigantopithecus blacki, which once lived in southern China, represents the largest great ape known to scientists: standing 10 feet tall and weighing up to 650 pounds (295 kilograms).
But his size may also have been a weakness.
“It’s just a massive animal – really, really big,” said Renaud Joannes-Boyau, a researcher at Southern Cross University in Australia and co-author of the published study. in the journal Nature. “When food starts to become scarce, it becomes so big that it cannot climb trees to explore new food sources.”
The giant apes, which probably resembled modern orangutans, survived for about 2 million years on the forested plains of China’s Guangxi region. They followed a vegetarian diet, snacking on fruits and flowers in the rainforests, until the environment began to change.
Researchers analyzed pollen and sediment samples preserved in Guangxi caves, as well as fossil teeth, to understand how forests produced fewer fruits around 600,000 years ago, when the region experienced more dry seasons. .
Giant apes did not disappear quickly, but probably disappeared between 215,000 and 295,000 years ago, the researchers found.
Although smaller apes may have been able to climb trees to look for different foods, the researchers’ analysis shows that giant apes ate more tree bark, reeds and other non-nutritious foods. .
“When the forest changed, there was not enough food preferred by the species,” said co-author Zhang Yingqi of the China Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
Most of what scientists know about extinct great apes comes from studying fossil teeth and four large lower jaw bones, all found in southern China. No complete skeleton has been found.
About 2 to 22 million years ago, several dozen species of great apes inhabited Africa, Europe and Asia, according to the fossil record. Today, only gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and humans remain.
Even though the first humans appeared in Africa, scientists don’t know on which continent the great ape family first appeared, said Rick Potts, who directs the human origins program at the National Museum of Natural History from the Smithsonian and did not participate in the study.
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