The mass extinction of 3-meter-tall prehistoric giant apes is actually related to their "picky eating"?

The mystery of the extinction of Gigantopithecus, the largest primate in history, which could stand up to 3 meters tall and weigh up to 300 kilograms, has been solved by a team of scientists from China, Australia and the United States. The study found that Gigantopithecus's persistence in feeding behavior and food preferences made it unable to adapt to environmental changes, leading to its extinction between 295,000 and 215,000 years ago.

A reconstruction of Gigantopithecus's life scene. (Photo provided by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

The relevant results were published in the internationally renowned academic journal Nature on the 11th.

Gigantopithecus was once widely distributed in the karst region of southern China, especially in Guangxi. Today, only about 2,000 teeth and four incomplete jaws can prove its existence. Other primates living in the same area at that time successfully adapted to the environment and thrived. Why did the powerful Gigantopithecus alone fail to escape extinction?

The huge lower jaw fossil of Gigantopithecus brevis. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Wen Jinghua

An international multidisciplinary comprehensive study led by a research team from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has solved a mystery that has lingered in the paleontological community for many years. Since 2015, the research team has investigated hundreds of cave fossil sites in Guangxi and selected 22 of them for sample collection, including 11 sites that produced Gigantopithecus brevis fossils and 11 sites of later times that did not produce Gigantopithecus brevis fossils.

On this basis, the research team applied 6 independent dating techniques to fossil deposits and fossils themselves, and obtained 157 radiometric dating results. These dating data were combined with the analysis results of eight aspects, including pollen, mammal groups, stable isotopes of teeth, trace elements, and micro-wear marks, to fully demonstrate the causes and consequences of the extinction of Gigantopithecus brevis.

The living environment, feeding behavior, and extinction process of Gigantopithecus brevis changed over time. (Photo courtesy of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

About 2.3 million to 700,000 years ago, Gigantopithecus, which preferred fruits, flowers and other foods, thrived in resource-rich forests. Then, as seasonality intensified, forests gradually degraded and grasslands increased significantly. Changes in the living environment made the food preferred by Gigantopithecus gradually scarce, but they still relied on nutritious alternative foods, and the diversity of their food was greatly reduced; at the same time, their bodies became larger and more cumbersome, and their geographical range of food intake was greatly reduced, causing the population to continue to shrink and eventually become extinct between 295,000 and 215,000 years ago. As a close relative of Gigantopithecus, orangutans have become smaller and more flexible, and have also changed their feeding behavior and habitat preferences, allowing them to reproduce to this day.

Zhang Yingqi, co-first author and co-corresponding author of the paper and a researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that humans are currently facing biodiversity challenges, and exploring the causes of the extinction of Gigantopithecus will provide inspiration for our understanding of the survival resilience of primates and the adaptive strategies and survival challenges of other large animals.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

Reporter: Wen Jinghua