King Kong Lived?

Agent Provocateur writes "McMaster University recently announced the discovery of the remains of a gigantic ape, measuring over 3 meters tall and weighing up to 600kg, that supposedly co-existed alongside humans." From the article: "Jack Rink, associate professor of geography and earth sciences at McMaster, has determined that Gigantopithecus blackii, the largest primate that ever lived, roamed southeast Asia for nearly a million years before the species died out 100,000 years ago. This was known as the Pleistocene period, by which time humans had already existed for a million years."

Comments

Makes me wonder..

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Makes me wonder if someone was paid to withhold this information untill King Kong's release or is being paid to release it when it's unconfirmed..

Re:Makes me wonder..

[DrEldarion]

Doubtful, besides the fact that this is hardly "giant" (come on, 10-feet tall?), marketers would have to be pretty stupid to assume that this would influence sales any. ... and we ALL know that marketers never do anything dumb.

Re:Makes me wonder..

[Walt Dismal]

Biologists now know that this was where pro wrestlers came from. See Nature magazine, Dec 2005, p435 "Prehistoric Smackdown Confirmed by Carbon-Dating".

Re:Makes me wonder..

[holyceefax]

...or is being paid to release it when it's unconfirmed..

Are you suggesting that the esteemed 'McMaster' university, CA, (or its 'McProfessor' of 'McAnthropology') might be less than reputable? Or that the name Gigantopithecus blackii (="Great big black thing"?) might not have been agreed upon by the wider anthropological community?

Re:Makes me wonder..

[aussie_a]

It wasn't withheld though. Everyone's known about Giganticus Blackii for quite some time now.

Re:Makes me wonder..

[shrewd]

"marketers would have to be pretty stupid to assume that this would influence sales any. "

i dont know, remember sales of mars bars went through the roof when we sent that first rover to mars.... i think that it would DEFINATLY influence sales....

Re:Makes me wonder..

[zippthorne]

I think it's a kind of symbiosis. The scientists themselves aren't witholding th einformation, but like the hobbits of new zealand, or the astronomy news before armageddon, the publishers tend to print things that are relevant to whatever the big advertising push is. If the movie weren't coming out, would this story be interesting to as many people? It's just about which news gets pushed when, not about specific things waiting for movies.

Re:Makes me wonder..

[ekwhite]

This guy is big, but hardly gigantic. He appears to be about twice as big as a modern lowland gorilla. For comparison, an average grizzly bear can weigh up to 1500 pounds and top 10 feet tall. The worlds record Kodiak bear was 2500 pounds and 13 feet tall. The worlds record black bear was over 900 pounds.

Re:Makes me wonder..

[ikkonoishi]

So what are you saying?

That he should be called Duke Kong?

Re:Makes me wonder..

[nomadic]

Yep, I did my anthropology degree years ago, and they had taught us about the dude back then.

Re:Makes me wonder..

[trentblase]

I think it should be Baron Von Kong

What killed the giant apes?

[Slur]

"Oh no. It wasn't the asteroids. T'was beauty that killed the beast!"

.

Birth of a Legend

[core plexus]

Are not many legends born of some fact? Look at The Bible, for example, and many creation legends (Raven created the Earth sounds a lot like Genesis). Also, many people believe iceworms are mere legends, but it seems that they may provide some insight

Bigfoot/Yeti? Sea Monsters?

Re:Birth of a Legend

[afaik_ianal]

A specimen, live or dead, will do nicely to silence the skeptics.

I'm sure it would - It's amazing what evidence will do to an objective person's views. If only the lack of any evidence would manage people's overactive imaginations a little.

Re:Birth of a Legend

[tod_miller]

Like smallgits, but bigger. no?

Re:Birth of a Legend

[MadMoses]

What is/are "midgits"

"An invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, starting with a mountain, trees and a "midgit" (sic). All evidence pointing towards evolution was intentionally planted by this being." - from wikipedia's Flying_Spaghetti_Monsterism article.

Re:Birth of a Legend

[saforrest]

Almost every religion on this earth speaks of a flooding so big almost nothing survived - which should collide with the time a giant astroid hit the ocean somewhere around Cuba...

Um, you seem to be referring to the K-T extinction, which rendered approximately 50% of all genera extinct and is currently believed to have been caused by a meteorite impact in the Gulf of Mexico near what is now the Yucatan Peninsula.

The thing is, that was 65 million years ago, at which time we -- and almost all other mammals -- were tiny furry insect-eaters trying our best not to get stepped on. So I hardly think we're going to find long-buried echoes of this event in our oral histories.

Re:Birth of a Legend

[Vinnie_333]

Raven created the Earth sounds a lot like Genesis

What era of Genesis. Cause I much prefer their earlier Progressive era with Peter Gabriel on vocals. The Phil Collins stuff is ok, but they got a bit too poppy towards the end.

Obligatory...

[m00j]

I for one welcome our, wait they died out! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Re:Obligatory...

[MadMoses]

Is that you, Anakin?

Re:Obligatory...

[Hellasboy]

don't answer that question... it's a trap!

Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

All sorts of strange creatures existed during the plasticine era. I thought everyone knew that.

huh..?

[Turn-X Alphonse]

So the articles "We found a tooth" with nothing much more to back it up..? WTF, I know King kong is out soon but what the hell Monkey?

Re:huh..?

[Markus Registrada]

It's not much to go on, but...

"Since then 3 jaw bones and over a thousand teeth have been recovered, not only in apothecary shops but in situ as well" ... "Gigantopithecus blacki was 10 feet tall and weighed 1,200 pounds. ... The way they arrived at this picture was first to estimate the size of the head from the jaw, and then to use a head/body ratio of 1:6.5 in order to determine the body size."

Interestingly, "Females may have been half the size of the males, since the teeth fall markedly into two distinct size groupings".

Curiously, clues from the surfaces of two teeth have them living on something akin to figs as well as grasses (probably bamboo).

Re:huh..?

[meringuoid]

So it could just as easily have been a species of normal sized apes with abnormally sized heads, rather than abnormally sized apes with normal sized heads.

Not so easily. First off, large heads will require proportionately broad hips at least, else the species will run into severe difficulties reproducing itself. Second, the proportion of head (or more accurately brain) size to body size is roughly correlated to intelligence - for instance an elephant has a bigger brain than I do, but also a much bigger body. A head as disproportionately large as you suggest would suggest that these apes were very bright - so why do we rule the world?

Re:huh..?

[Belseth]

Actually the teeth were found some time ago. What's new is the dating information. Dogma claimed that they died out 500,000+ years ago. The new evidence brings the date up to 100,000 years ago. This will now become current dogma given this is not likely to be the date they actually died out. So few teeth and bones have been found it's impossible to even guess at an extinction date but until more bones are found it's the new hard ceiling and any more recent teeth found will be held to a high standard of evidence inorder to break through the entrenched dogma. It's amazing to me that an animals entire history is assumed based on a few bones. We know for a fact that T-Rexs died out 65,000,000 years ago. No in fact we don't know that it's simply that the most recent fossils found are 65 mill old. Very few T-Rex skeletons have been found so any dates given are wild guesses. The KT boundry exists based on a large number of fossils but few of them were Rex fossils. They probably did died out during that period there simply are no hard facts to support that and some dinosaurs are bound to have survived the KT barrier for a few million years we simply haven't found the fossils. Given the sparce nature of the record it's possible none of the fossils exist so true dates may never be known. The same situation exists with the ape fossils. The actual extinct probably occured more recently there simply aren't fossils to back it up yet. It's even possible a small number survived until historic times but that's unlikely. If they died out recently it's probable that bones would have been found unless they existed in very remote areas in small numbers. The irony is that if they were isolated the giant ape might have even lost much of it's size. The pygmy effect that happens to island bound animals can happen in isolated pockets in non island areas. There's obviously talk that they still survive and are the source of the Bigfoot legends. Highly unlikely given if they lived until modern times and actually managed to spread their range to North America there would have been bones to find. There hasn't been a single primate bone or fossil found in either Canada or the US. It sounds likely that like Pandas they were locked into a diet of Bamboo so it's probable that a bamboo die off ultimately killed them and probably not man. With a calorie intact like they had major die offs like we have today would have been devastating and probably kept their numbers low. I'm praying on a complete fossil to settle the upright or knuckle walk issue. The skull points to upright but most resist that idea so most recontructions still show knuckle walking. Dogma always supercedes evidence until it's impossible to ignore. Pterosaurs are still considered flying reptiles because of a dispute over leg orientation. Their skeletons were identical to small theropod dinosaurs but dogma still states that they somehow walked splay legged. People are slow to change. Remember that most still think of Europe as a continient inspite of having water on only three sides. The source of that was Victorian arrogance not scientific fact.

Re:huh..?

[Hognoxious]

A head as disproportionately large as you suggest would suggest that these apes were very bright - so why do we rule the world?

Maybe they were smart enough to invent nuclear weapons. Then all it would need was them to do it. For the bastards to finally do it.

BMI

[Anonymous Coward]

Body-mass index of 66.7. Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater. No wonder they got extinct.

Re:BMI

[Eponymous Powder]

My advice? Keep digging - you're sure to find the fossilised Krispy Kreme franchise somewhere nearby... the remains of the ape's SUV is probably still in the parking lot.

Oh, the irony...

[BrynM]

I nearly thought it was suddenly April 1 when I read the fourth paragraph:

Research into Gigantopithecus blackii 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.

Hmmm, the 30's and the word "kong" in there twice? Then again, TFA never mentions King Kong (which Gigantopithecus blackii is about 10 feet too short for), so maybe the association is there for subliminal hype. Those marketers are sooooo clever. Damn marketers.

Re:Oh, the irony...

[falzer]

Sounds highly speculative. BTW, Koenig is german for 'king.'

Did you look around any other sources on the internet to check for other, older references to Koenigswald? Or Gigantopithecus blackii?

Re:Oh, the irony...

[MadMoses]

        Research into Gigantopithecus blackii 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.

Hmmm, the 30's and the word "kong" in there twice?

Even stranger: "Koenig" is German for King.

Re:Oh, the irony...

[coleblak]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Heinrich_Ralph _von_Koenigswald

Re:Oh, the irony...

[tod_miller]

Research into Gigantopithecus blackii 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.

In any complex enough system you can prove almost any relationship if you are willing to ignore various holes in your own logic. Lets welcome the next speaker, a guy who ones watched a low budget documentary on evolution and darwin, here to convince us all that he is right.

Oh sorry, did I disturb you sense of well being. My bad.

Re:Oh, the irony...

[cakesy]

Hey, the kids at my Primary school called, they want their joke back.

So we metric system users...

[OpenSourced]

... can now speak about the 600 Kg gorilla. Good.

Re:So we metric system users...

[dascandy]

Actually, no. It's kg, with a small k. Also, ks (kilo-second, 1/86.4'th of a day), km (kilometer, 1/1.609344 of a US mile), kHz etc.

Yeah.

[dirtsurfer]

a gigantic ape, measuring over 3 meters tall and weighing up to 600kg, that supposedly co-existed alongside humans."

We still have these today. You can track one down by listening for its unmistakable cry; "Developers! Developers! Developers!"

Re:Yeah.

[S. Ballmer]

yo momma...

Re:Yeah.

[linguae]

Also watch out for some chair-throwing action whenever it gets mad.

Re:Gigantic wang.

[BrynM]

Scientists also estimate this gorilla had a penis larger than the leg of a full grown man.

Hence the name "Gigantopithecus blackii". It means "penis as large as a black guy" in pig latin or something like that. Or maybe it means "my giant penis will give you a black eye". I bet that's it. It's a warning label. Yep, that's it.

Theories?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there anyone from Kansas with some *plausible* theories about this monkey?

Re:Theories?

[meringuoid]

Is there anyone from Kansas with some *plausible* theories about this monkey?

'There were giants in the earth in those days' - Genesis 6:4

Re:Theories?

[TheZorch]

Easy, during the periods after the demise of the dinosaurs there was an explosion of mamallian life on Earth. Animals just got bigger and bigger.

There was a species of sloth that lived while humans roamed the Earth that was bigger than an elephant from today. Mamoths, big hairy elephant ancestors, roamed the land and they were twice the size of today elephants. A lot of animals were really huge during these periods. They are called Megafauna. Only two Megafauna from this time exists today; the Blue Whale and the Giant Squid.

I'm not really all that surprised by the existance of a giant ape. A lot of animals that are small today were really huge 100,000 years ago and earlier.

This of course leads to the possibility that other Megafauna might have survived like the Blue Whale and Giant Squid did. What is Nessie is a Megafauna, a species of some sort of giant fish or cold-blooded reptile (not a Dinosaur, but there were giant cold-blood reptiles after the Dinosaurs died out also) might be the answer.

Re:Theories?

[somersault]

That was talking about humans =p Also to do with TFA, does anyone ever believe the accuracy of carbon dating? o_0

Re:Theories?

[apflwr]

Is there anyone from Kansas with some *plausible* theories about this monkey?

It couldn't fit on the Ark.

Re:Theories?

[meringuoid]

and though the article is talking about electron spinning and uranium then I assume they still use the carbon atoms somehow, unless we all have a lot of uranium in us.

Nope, carbon dating has nothing to do with this. The timescale here is from 100,000 - 1,000,000 years ago. Carbon dating is only good on a timescale of thousands of years; that's great for mysterious Assyrian artefacts, frozen icemen, Egyptian mummies and so forth, and it's not bad for mammoths and sabretooths and things, but not for this. Once something's been dead for a very long time, nearly all the radioactive carbon has decayed and it's no longer a useful clock.

What's being used here is apparently electron spin resonance dating, of which more here. Not sure what the uranium measurement is, though; AFAIK, the uranium-lead clock is used on a timescale of billions of years, to date the most ancient rocks, though I'm no geologist and there may well be other decay products that give a shorter-term measure.

Re:Theories?

[celticchrys]

          See, even the Bible admits that species can go extinct or change. (which some evolution opponents deny) God must get a good chuckle whenever someone starts howling about how evolution didn't happen, acting like they know just what process their god used to start life. Either that, or he is continually disappointed because so many of us refuse to see the clues left lying around for us to learn from, wasting these brains we were given.
          I mean, come on, a day isn't the same length on Mars as here on Earth, and yet some morons still think it must have been literally 7 Earth days in which the universe was made!

Re:Theories?

[LnxAddct]

You read the bible based on assumptions. You can not prove those assumptions. I am the second coming of god, disprove it... thats right, you can't. And just like Jesus did in the bible, if you test me I'll tell you not to test the lord. So I can make all the claims I want and tell you that you aren't allowed to test them... your only choice is to hope that what your parents have told you your whole life is right. If someone gave me a bible and changed around a few names, I'd think it was another epic poem by Homer. I made no claims about my intellignece, I simply implied that those who believe simply because they are told to believe don't deserve their brain. You cannot read the bible and come to a conclusion about its legitimacy. In order to prove something, it has to be proven using something else, disconnected. I can say all humans are 6 ft. tall, then look at myself and consider that a proof... but I'd be dead wrong. The way religion is set up, you can never prove or disprove its basis. It is like Santa or the Easter Bunny... you can never prove they don't exist, you just assume that based on popular oppinion they don't. Anything that you could say to try and prove that Santa doesn't exist can be refuted, maybe he's tired and taking a break, maybe he delivers presents to everyone except to you while the rest of the world is in on a giant conspiracy to lie to you about it... it could go on forever. People want more to life than there is, they want to be special, they want a purpose. People have the balls to claim that they are designed in the form of God, what kind of self-serving bullshit is that? That claim requires alot of balls. Anyway... considering how often the bible has been translated and edited and modified by various authorities who felt it necessary to make it fit their views, not to mention a few of the languages originally written in no longer exist, I'd read that book with a grain of salt. One example of horrific editorializing by the church is with the book of St. Thomas. It is one of the few books that depicts Jesus in his teens, it would of helped fill in the gap between his childhood and manhood. The church disallowed it because it showed Jesus abusing his powers, which considering Jesus is part human and a teen seems completely natural to me, but the church thought people would use it to justify doing misdeeds because even Jesus got away with at some parts in his life. The bible was put together with the intention of control in mind. The church wants people to fear, because then the church can control. Context is everything, and the bible lacks it. You only see what the church wants you to see.
Regards,
Steve

I see 'em all the time...

[ChePibe]

I see apes like that all the time here on campus. But we don't have a fancy name for them - here they're called, "offensive linemen."

Re:I see 'em all the time...

[tloh]

I see apes like that all the time here on campus. But we don't have a fancy name for them - here they're called, "offensive linemen."

What could possibly be so offensive about these gentle bamboo-eating herbivore giants?

PromoPower!

[jlraptor]

Anyone else hope this turns out to be some gimmick to boost interest in the King King movie?

What the hell are we gonna do with ten thousand angel ashtrays?

Body Mass Index

[Zog The Undeniable]

With a BMI of 600/(3^2) = 66.6 he was one big fat ape (the healthy limit for a human is 25). I guess these creatures were intelligent enough to invent fast food and maple syrup pancakes.

Not "recently discovered"

[1u3hr]

According to the crack Slashdot editorial team: "McMaster University recently announced the discovery of the remains of a gigantic ape".

In fact, TFA says "Research into Gigantopithecus blackii began in 1935". (70 years ago, recent on the geological scale, perhaps.) The article is about a new dating method that determined that the ape "roamed southeast Asia for nearly a million years before the species died out 100,000 years ago", the same period humans were developing, and thus the possibility of interaction, or that we wiped them out.

Oh geez!

[thej1nx]

First any remains of a dwarf are automatically dubbed "hobbit" by the media and now a giant ape remains are dubbed "King Kong"

What is the fetish of present-day media with dubbing scientific discoveries and news with hollywood inspired names ????

What is up next ?
"antique car found in a warehouse!" - "WE FOUND HERBIE!!!! "
"Giant crocodile remains found"- "GODZILLA LIVES! IT IS TRUE!!! REMAINS BEING SENT TO TOKYO!!!"
"150 years old skeleton of a cowboy discovered" - "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MAN WITH NO NAME!!!"
"broken phone instrument found lying around the crime area" - "E.T. FINALLY PHONED HOME!!!"

Sheesh!!!

Re:Oh geez!

[Hello Kitty]

PJ's paleo-synchronous track record is starting to worry me -- at this rate someone's gonna dig up that evil skeleton dude from The Frighteners. (checks IMDB) Aw FSCK! His next film's The Lovely Bones! (runs away)

This is very old news

[batmanmiles]

The hell is this doing on Slashdot? It's in my freaking anthro textbook, fer chrissakes. My textbook.

yeah right...

[b4stard]

... next you're gonna tell me godzilla lived. Like there ever were a bunch of giant lizard roaming the earth. That's just silly.

Re:yeah right...

[umrgregg]

Yeah? Well, yoiu haven't met the old guy living next to me have you?

it's all a hoax, and I have proof!

[dominux]

Research into Gigantopithecus blackii 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.

some more info ...

[gerddie]

Resently, i heard a talk of Russell Ciochon about the Giganto. He was also addressing the possibility that humans and Giganto might have co-occoured in the area. He said that he now thinks that the teeth subjected to early humans might actually belong to some other, smaller ape.

100,000 years humans did not walk in asia

[nietsch]

If you take a look at this map, it suggests that modern man entered asia only about 70-60,000 years ago. So this ceartue may not have lived alongside early humans.
Human history isn't that old really, wikipedia pegs the start of H.Sapiens at 200,000 years ago, and most of that time has been spent in Africa.

Re:100,000 years humans did not walk in asia

[meringuoid]

If you take a look at this map, it suggests that modern man entered asia only about 70-60,000 years ago. So this ceartue may not have lived alongside early humans.

It may not have lived alongside H. sapiens, but it definitely would have encountered H. erectus, which certainly constitutes 'early human', don't you think?

Re:100,000 years humans did not walk in asia

[nietsch]

That is debatable (but a silly debate). If you consider Neanderthals as early humans too (they decended from H erectus just like H. sapiens) then yes H.erectus is a early human too. It's all depending on where you draw the line. If you stretch it really far, you could even argue that the first proto-mammals were early humans too. Personally(as a laymen) I draw the line at H. Sapiens. Before that is humanoid, but not human.

Re:100,000 years humans did not walk in asia

[RobotRunAmok]

wikipedia pegs the start of H.Sapiens at 200,000 years ago

"Wikipedia pegs?!?!?" Wikipedia could be a kid in his pajamas sugared up on Fruit Loops and jujubes watching a Mummies Alive! marathon and logged on from his Mom's computer.

Wikipedia! You cite it like it means something. C'mon...

Re:100,000 years humans did not walk in asia

[nietsch]

True, wikipedia is a source that you can never trust 100% for the reasons you cite. That is why I mentioned I got the info from wikipedia. It was just the first source google came up with that answered my question. I do not know about the other sites that google offered, so this is a good as any. Better the evil you know...

Re:100,000 years humans did not walk in asia

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

I draw the line at the Mullett.

Re:100,000 years humans did not walk in asia

[saforrest]

"Wikipedia pegs?!?!?" Wikipedia could be a kid in his pajamas sugared up on Fruit Loops and jujubes watching a Mummies Alive! marathon and logged on from his Mom's computer.

I don't understand how people, on Slashdot of all places, can't get past the anyone-can-edit-so-it's-all-crap argument about Wikipedia.

It's true that at any given time the content of any given Wikipedia page could be "omigod justin timberlake RULEZ", but you will notice that such changes last, usually, about 3-4 minutes. Discerning when this has and has not happened is what the "revision history" and "talk" pages are for.

Yes, there's nothing to stop stupid crap from being added, but I have yet to find a case where said crap does not reveal itself with a bit of effort. If I'm looking up information about human evolution, and find an article written by a kid in his pajamas, well, that will quickly become obvious to me from the writing. Similarly, if the article was not written by said kid, but said kid comes along and randomly changes "1,000,000 years ago" to "100,000 years ago" with no convincing argument in the edit summary, it will generally be noticed and reverted.

No, you can't make unequivocal statements about the content, and information of a highly technical nature is hit and miss. But the degree of coverage more than makes up for this. And in most cases, by combining the article content with judicious use of edit history, talk page discussions, and general critical judgment, I've found Wikipedia to be good enough as an information resource that it's usually the first place I look on the Internet.

Re:100,000 years humans did not walk in asia

[duckpoopy]

Wikipedia is just like a peer-reviewed journal where, by 'peer', I mean anybody who has access to the internet.

Big Ape

[Edman]

The "gigantopithecus blackii" is a long known species, and scientist already proposed the fact pre-sapiens humanoid species did often have contact. I don't know why this old "news" is dug out again. some kind of "getting-people-to-the-cinema"-publicity for the new King Kong movie by Peter Jackson? by the way, the old one (from the seventies)was great...

All your blondes

[slashmojo]

All your blondes are belong to Kong!

Re:Why the incesant need to convert english to met

[cbv]

Maybe, just maybe, because the majority of people in the world do use metric?

King Kong? Not really...

[racecarj]

This is really more on the Mighty Joe Young size scale.

Re:Gigantic wang.

[JemVai777]

What have 20% of the moderators been smoking?

The aforementioned giant penis?

They didn't find any fossils.

[TapeCutter]

Gigantopithecus has been (as the article states) studied since the 30's. Reading the summary, I thought somebody had found some new fossils. Seems to me they did not even "find a tooth", the article is actually about estimating the age of an existing fossil.

Incredible skills

[serveron]

so scientist are capable of buying a molar at a pharmacy, combine it with a few jawbones and then complete the whole puzzle? It ate bamboo, it had hair and they draw you a picture of what it looked like. CSI Miami is nothing compared to this.