Look at the Equus genus and see the colors differences between zebras, asses (donkeys) and horses, If species of the same genus can be so different, then gigantopithecus has a wide range of possibilities to be different from orangutans, precisely due to their evolutionary distance, even though they are related. @@Jay-jb2vr
“Oh, oobee doo! I wanna be like you! I wanna walk like you, talk like you, too! You'll see it's true, an ape like me can learn to be human too!” -Gigantopithecus, who we know through scientific research were actually very talented singers
Could you imagine if the skull turns out to look more like a gorillas skull as opposed to an orangutan’s, it would really hone in on the whole real life King Kong aspect. Although If it turns out to have brown hair as opposed to black or ginger hair, it would be more like the real life Donkey Kong in a sense.
All the more reasons to protect Orangutans from going extinct so that maybe one day, this planet will have another large ape species like Gigantopithecus.
I wonder if we are also making orangutans even more adaptable by putting them in zoos, rescue centres etc where they have to be more social than they would be in the wild. I hope orang utans survive because they seem more vulnerable than chimps and gorillas.
GutSick Gibbon did a similar video on the extinction of Gigantopithecus, & it seems that unlike modern Gorillas it had no high-altitude adaptations. Because when similar drying periods hit Africa Gorillas retreat into the mountains where the moister is still high enough to support the ground plants they feed on. Fun fact, this actually makes Gorillas surprisingly good at handling the cold.
I find the Gigantopithecus current weight estimates unconvincing. A large eastern lowland gorilla standing 6’5 is usually well over 400 pounds. A barely over 5 ft tall large male orangutan is also around 200 pounds. So I don’t understand how scaling either orangutan or gorilla to Gigantopithecus’ theoretical size would give such a “low” weight estimate of 600 pounds.
They were probably 8000 pounds and stood at 12 feet tall. They could support their weight by standing on all fours like a Gorilla. Or any other primate. So I don’t see how it’s a big deal.
I know that humans being that size is not a natural state of being and they're very unhealthy and it comes from a combination of unusual environmental factors that weren't present in a more primitive lifestyle, but humans do exist at those sizes and are technically primates.@@pedroarjona6996
Was King Louis meant to be a gigantopithecus? I thought that film was just messing with all animal sizes like Kaa practically being the length of a blue whale.
King louis roar was badass but gutt was the only thing that made ice age 4 slightly tolerable so gonna have to give it to him (also leg pressing an iceberg is crazy)
Did you ever think about how the durian has a seed similar to the size of an avocado seed? Could gigantopithecus be the animal that swallowed these seeds whole? I feel like it's entirely possible that they played a role in durian cultivation in a similar way to giant sloths for avocados.
I appreciate the fact that you are among the very few science RU-vidrs who make an effort to pronounce Chinese names correctly. So many of the popular channels don’t bother even to look up pronunciation of common scientific terms, a trivial task on the Internet. Thank you!
Chinese is a tonal language so it's hard to pronounce words correctly for most Westerners. Rising, flat and falling tone mean three different words for something for a non-Chinese speaker sounds about the same.
@@raylopez99 he didn’t use the tones at all, but he understood the basic sounds represented by pinyin spelling, like what “x” and “zh” represent, which very few other sites do correctly.
To be fair half of the paleo content creators ive seen struggle with basic latin and greek aswell (To specify i mean not only pronunciation but even syllable order)
Your videos are really fascinating. Lots of high quality info in little space. You approach many subjects that a lot of channels do but in a more in-depth and analytical way and thus you clarify more controversial areas better. One single negative remark about the quality of the videos: the image is shaking at the top when the screen is white in that region, which is somehow distracting, maybe you can do something about it. Otherwise very nice videos!
Hey Dr.Polaris, right after the evolution and the history of the Mosasaurs, why don't you think about making a suggestion and creating a RU-vid Videos that's all about the evolution of and the history of the Prehistoric Marine Reptiles called the Plesiosauria, (Both Plesiosaurs And Pliosaurs) in the next couple of weeks to think about that one coming up next?!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️👍👍👍👍👍
I have mentioned before in your video about orangutan and it’s extinct relatives in ponginae that there are those who say that gigantopithecus may have become the abominable snowman of the Himalayas, but I’m not making any assumptions.
Bipedal birds of enormous size existed, so it's not overtly impossible. Then again, even humans often have back issues. So a fully bipedal primate much larger than us seems implausible without massive difference in basic structure.
Innumerable sightings, photos, footprint casts, First Nation accounts going back hundreds of years, I would say their existence is probable. The lumber and mining industries would lose billions of dollars if an endangered primate was acknowledged, putting lands off limits to their exploitation.
@ 7:20 Well, between the small canines and footage of their modern relatives fighting, I'd actually conclude that it was one of the lamest possible fights imaginable--especially given the size of these guys. I mean, just look up orangutan fights: they're nowhere near as violent as the rest of the ape family. Actually, they aren't even all that violent. They can dish out damage--lots of it--but this is rarer than is done among the African apes.
Thank you for not bringing up the Bigfoot like a gazillion other channels. I personally think that the Yeren and the Yeti exist/existed, but are/were relic Chinese Orangutans.
@@matthewwelsh294 Plus the Bigfoot is said to stand and walk upright. Granted we don't have a full skeleton, however there is evidence from calculations that Gigantopithicus (Unsure of spelling!) was likely to have been very top heavy and could only move on two legs for short bursts! It was more quadrupedal like a Bear or Panda and probably had a similar ecological niche.
There is a theory bigfoot could be some surviving ancestor of Gigantopithecus that made it's way to North America when the land bridge still existed between the two continents. Food for thought.
I'm not sure the right plants were available upon that land bridge to support their migration, though with many bigfoot sightings reporting some individuals with red hair, bigfoot could be a close relative of the orang-utans and sivapithecine apes. About half of the yowie sightings down here in Australia are said to have red hair. Like the smaller Orang-Pendek in Sumatra, which may be small as per insular dwarfism. I think having a much more adaptive or generalist diet enabled the "bigfoot" apes to successfully migrate not only from Asia to America, but also down through Indonesia and into Australia. Gigantopithecus has a more specialised diet, plus likely being far more quadrupedal which expends more energy in long distance locomotion. Their adaptations wouldn't allow for such a migration, nor do I believe they could have adapted quickly enough to become bigfoot. Still, I think they're like cousins... or 3rd cousins maybe haha
Given how difficult it is for humans to move once their height and bulk reaches ~7.5 ft & ~350 lbs, it is hard to imagine an ape that is 10 feet tall and well over 600 lbs You would think they would need radically different skeletal & muscular structure, and they also need to not be very picky about where they get their daily calories.
I guess there is still no answer to why these guys lack the parallel dental arcade of other apes instead of the parabolic dental arcade of humans (although not as pronounced)?
The image at the nine minute mark is interesting. If these animals, which we know existed, moved from Asia to North America, like many other animals did, could they have adapted to a northwest rainforest environment?
Will this planet ever have another great ape as big as this species? This is coincidentally after the recent Godzilla and Kong New Empire 2nd trailer. Earth back then was the Hollow Earth.
Excellent as usual and I really learned so much I didn't know about orangutans biggest daddy. I think it would have been a brave and desperate tiger ancestor that tried their luck against a grown male Gigantopithecus but their babies and the females may have been an adequately sized target, since you suggest there was sexual dimorphism.
I love you videos Dr. P. Fascinating yet at the same time so loaded with rapid-fire scientific jargon (i.e. great info!) I find myself frequently having to check my drifting mind (too many cool renditions lol) and rewind to make sure I "caught all that." Fantastic stuff.
Has anyone else had issues with Dr. Polaris videos not being recommended? Like no notifications? Something I really dont get about Gigantopithecus is the weight estimates. I get that we're talking estimates & just because a big Silverback can be high 400lbs range that it might not necessarily scale but Gigantopithecus if they are truly as large as scientists believe surely they'd be 800-1000lbs range!?
Man, it's crazy to think we can be the same weight as 2 of these beasts. A red head who is 1200 lbs would just roll onto the raging beast and squish him like a giant cartoon snowball
Long-time watcher, first-time commenter (I think); I've been watching content/programming on prehistoric animals since I was a kid in the 1980s (I had quite a library of dinosaur/prehistoric mammal documentaries in those days). Thanks, as always, for another interesting video.
Do paleo channels coordinate to post videos about the same topics at the same time? Because Dino-gen released a video about Gigantopithecus an hour after you. I also remember when three or four channels released videos about entelodon at the same time
Gigantopithecus had very much human like face features. Most portrayals of it wrong. And it was very much up-right walking stance, although it could run, on soft ground, on all fours really fast too. As well as it could trounce run on two legs, which was faster. Big-foot or Yeti is the this creature.
