Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2010 20:17:32 GMT 10
During the Pleistocene Era (1.8 million to 10,000 years ago) large mammals ruled the Earth. One of these mammals was the great ape Gigantopithecus.
Gigantopithecus is known to have lived in what is now China and Southeast Asia. (In fact he was discovered, by Professor Gustav von Koenigswald, when the professor bought a set of fossil teeth from a Chinese druggist selling what he claimed were "dragon's teeth" for medicinal purposes.)
Gigantopithecus was the largest primate that ever walked the Earth. He would have risen 9 to 10 feet high if he choose to stand up on only his hind legs, and probably weighed about 600 lbs (A few scientists suggest the largest of the males might have weighted almost 1,200 lbs.). In comparison, the largest gorilla stands only 6 feet tall and weighs about 300 to 400 lbs.
Both todays gorilla and Gigantopithecus probably used their arms and knuckles to move about in quadrupedal fashion. Though Gigantopithecus sounds like a terror he probably was a very gentle and retiring vegetarian, if we can use Mountain Gorilla behavior as a guide. Gorilla's, despite inaccurate stories about them, are fairly shy creatures that only put on aggressive displays of chestbeating and snarling when their territory is threatened
Bigfoot researchers generally lean toward one explanation: The Bigfoot-Giganto Theory (hypothesis). The subject of Gigantopithecus has attracted an increasing amount of interest anthropologists and primatologitsts over the past few decades. The Bigfoot-Giganto hypothesis suggests that bigfoots are surving relatives of the genus Gigantopithecus. Gigantopithecus (the Latin word for "Giant Ape") was a giant cousin of the orangutan. It was presumed to be extinct
There is some physical evidence to indicate that Gigantos in Asia were hunted and eaten by Homo erectus (ancestors to humans that lived contemporaneously with Gigantos).
The mainstream explanation for the apparent disappearance of Gigantos lays blame primarily on this predation by Homo erectus. Bigfoot-Giganto theorists do not accept the idea that a highly mobile genus like Gigantopithecus could have been completely wiped out by Homo erectus.
Instead they look to consistencies in present day bigfoot reports and see the necessary behavioral adaptations which would have allowed the Giganto line to avoid extinction at the hands of man.