Taller ape existed alongside humans 100,000 years ago

WASHINGTON: A taller ape who died out 100,000 years ago lived along side early humans, a researcher found.

The largest primate roamed southeast Asia for nearly a million years in the Pleistocene period, by which time humans had already existed for a million years, found Jack Rink, associate professor of geography and earth sciences in McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontari.

The ape was about 10 feet (3 meters) tall and weighed as much as 1,200 pounds (544 kg), says the report, which appeared in science portal world-science.net.

A missing piece of the puzzle has always focused on pinpointing when the ape named as Gigantopithecus blackii existed.

"This is a primate that co-existed with humans at a time when humans were undergoing a major evolutionary change. Guangxi province in southern China, where the apes fossils were found is the same region where some believe the modern human race originated," Rink said.

Research into the beast began in 1935, when the Dutch paleontologist G H Von Koenigswald discovered a yellowish molar among the 'dragon bones' for sale in a Hong Kong pharmacy.

Traditional Chinese medicine maintains that dragon bones, basically fossil bones and teeth, possess curative powers when the fossils are ground into a fine powder and eaten.

For nearly 80 years, the animal has intrigued scientists, who have pieced together a description using nothing more than a handful of teeth and a set of jawbones.

"The size of these specimens - the crown of the molar, for instance, measures about an inch across - helped us understand the extraordinary size of the primate," said Rink, who said he used high-precision absolute-dating methods to determine their age.

Sample studies further revealed Gigantopithecus was an herbivore, feasting mainly on bamboo, he added. Some believe its voracious appetite for bamboo ultimately placed it at the losing end of the evolutionary scale against its more nimble human competition.