Can you name a Vietnamese animal that hasn’t been hunted to the precipice of extinction or become a commodified item whose flesh, fur, or feathers are only deemed significant in relation to their practical use by humans?
It’s not so easy to think of one, but there is an enormous example: Gigantopithecus. A massive orangutan-like ape believed to have weighed 200 to 300 kilograms and stood over 3 meters tall rambled around modern-day China and northern Vietnam some two million years ago.
Speculative scene of Giganthopithecus by Garcia/Joannes-Boyau, Southern Cross University. Image via National Geographic.
Gigantopithecus, the largest homonoid known to have walked the earth, was first discovered because of the same superstitions that doom animals today: traditional medicine. In early 20th-century China, bones and teeth were used for all sorts of elixirs and potions passed off as “dragon bones.” Vendors hardly took a scientist’s eyes to the calcium, keratin, and enamel specimens kept in their drawers before pulverizing them. Knowing this, Ralph von Koenigswald, a Dutch geologist and paleontologist, made a habit of scouring apothecaries while researching in the region. In Hong Kong in 1925, he noticed a molar that appeared human-like but was five times the size of his own.
Gigantopithecus's holotype molar (left) and mandible (right). Images via Wikipedia.
Recognizing the importance of the finding, Koenigswald arranged scientific expeditions in mainland China. With the help of local marketing and supply cooperatives, he narrowed his search to caves in southern China, near the border with Vietnam, where he discovered hundreds more of the animal's teeth. The large teeth were distinct enough to warrant classification as an entirely new species, and in an all-too-familiar situation, he named the species Gigantopithecus blacki, in honor of Canadian palaeo-anthropologist Davidson Black, who had studied human evolution in China and had died the previous year.
Modern-day photo of Dinghu Mountain in Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province, southern China, which is believed to resemble the habitat of Gigantopithecus. Photo via Wikimedia.
In the subsequent decades, researchers discovered hundreds more Gigantopithecus teeth and four mandibles, including at cave sites in Vietnam. The research trips included American scientists working despite the 1990 embargo, suggesting that perhaps pursuit of science supersedes political posturing. While the sites contained significant mouth matter, the sizable skeletons are assumed to have been eaten by porcupines before they could fossilize. Still, scientists can make astounding understandings from fragments. Observing the large, flat molars with thick enamel attached to heavy jaws and analyzing residue on the teeth allowed them to conjecture that Gigantopithecus survived on tough, fibrous plant matter. Later examinations of carbon residues left on the teeth with high-powered microscopes suggest the apes had a mixed diet of fruits and fig seeds along with some variety of grasses, probably bamboo.
Giganthopithecus compared to modern-day orangutan as speculated for the Brainmaze.
This diet and estimations about its anatomy mean that compared to its closest relative, the modern-day orangutan, adult Gigantopithecus were likely too large to climb into trees to forage for fruits. Mathematical modeling places it at more than 10 feet tall and 1,200 pounds (for comparison, the average gorilla tops out at around 400 pounds). Such understanding has allowed scientists and artists to make educated depictions about its appearance, but there is no certainty about elements including fur color or bulk. Aspects of their behavior, temperament, intelligence, and social bonds can only be guessed at with the help of related species.
The misty line between fossil and legend
Gigantopithecus is believed to have existed for approximately one million years, up until about 100,000 years ago, which would have meant it could have occupied the same forests and jungles as early humans. While people are not believed to have contributed to their extinction (more on that to come), run-ins with the animals continue to populate myths and legends as intertwined with stories of Yeti and mysterious ape monsters.
Yeti as depicted in popular western legend and spectacle, specifically an American comic from 1971. Photo via New York Times.
The Yeti, a hairy, ape-like hominoid, has been said to roam the Himalayan mountains, with legends passing from Tibetan and Russian communities to the west where it is occasionally referred to as the Abominable Snowman. Owing to the region’s remoteness, intrigue persisted into the mid-20th century when western explorers arrived to obtain dubious evidence, including grainy photographs, large footprints, and mysterious strands of hair to delight foreign audiences. Every pelt debunked by DNA testing and piece of available modern technology increased skepticism until we arrived at the current widespread belief that no such cryptid exists.
However, amongst certain cryptozoology communities, the Yeti might still be out there, explained as a small, persisting population of isolated Gigantopithecus and their descendants. Putting aside the fact that the icy mountains do not resemble the ecosystems the ape is known to have inhabited, some believe that a group has survived tens of thousands of years and adapted to the climate. Moreover, Yetis are nearly always described as bipedal while Gigantopithecus is thought to have walked on all fours like an orangutan, for which no convincing explanation has been offered. The efforts to connect the Yeti to the great ape ultimately say more about 21st-century people’s desire to ground myth in science and our current age’s desire for empirical truth than any likelihood that Gigantopithecus is an extant species.
The rock ape as depicted in the Cryptid Archives.
We should apply a similar skepticism to claims that Gigantopithecus is behind the rock ape legends that circulated during Vietnam’s war with America. While never receiving formal academic journal coverage or serious news attention, if you spend time on GI blogs and subreddits, you will encounter mention of rock apes. These creatures, whose observers are adamant were normal animals and not mythic beasts, were given their name because of their penchant for throwing rocks at soldiers. While sightings of the creatures and their prints and fur predate and postdate the war, and were also made by Vietnamese forces, they were most widely reported by American soldiers in highland posts. Despite heights significantly less than Gigantopithecus’ 10 feet, some attempt to explain them as remote communities of the species agitated by the presence of armed forces.
The fact that rock apes have not been seen in the past several decades should convince us that they never existed at all, let alone as Gigantopithecus. But we can also make some conclusions about the psyche of soldiers during the war. Overwhelmed by the savagery of their assignments and the strangeness of their surroundings, troops latched onto the surreal to maintain sanity. Such an interpretation coincides with the existence of a large ape-like creature in Bảo Ninh’s The Sorrow of War, wherein a soldier kills an orangutan-like creature, despite none existing in the nation. Rather than reveal a potential lost species, such instances can be interpreted as man’s inability to explain the horrors of war in rational terms. Only by evoking the possibility of extinct species and the unlikelihood of prehistoric life persisting until today can there be room to justify the barbarity humans inflict upon itself.
An extinction explained
If we can assume Gigantopithecus did not persist in the Himalayas or remote Vietnamese forests and is in fact extinct, how did it happen? Scientists have some thrilling theories. Simply put, they were too big to adapt to climate change. Animals as large as Gigantopithecus have massive metabolic needs while producing few children, which makes them particularly vulnerable to the changes in vegetation that result from altered global temperatures and precipitation patterns. Unfortunately for them, this is exactly what began to happen around 300,000 years ago.
During this period, what had been tropical forest became grassier patches of land, as determined by analysis of pollen in the fossil record. A recent academic paper explained that “Just before and during the extinction window between 295,000 and 215,000 years ago there was enhanced environmental variability from increased seasonality, which caused changes in plant communities and an increase in open forest environments. Although its close relative Pongo weidenreichi [orangutans] managed to adapt its dietary preferences and behaviour to this variability, G. blacki showed signs of chronic stress and dwindling populations. Ultimately, its struggle to adapt led to the extinction of the greatest primate to ever inhabit the Earth.”
The extinction would not have been a fast process. Rather, as the forests grew drier, the abundance of the ape’s preferred food would have been less available. While young Gigantopithecus, as well as the orangutans who once inhabited Vietnam, could have climbed trees to access fruit, adults would have been reliant on dwindling plants on the ground. Evidence reveals they were forced to turn to more tree bark, reeds, and non-nutritious ruffage. Given their large size, this was ultimately not enough. As their preferred foods disappeared, and they couldn’t adapt to the plants that emerged to fill the niche, they disappeared. We will never know where or when the last great ape perished.
Photo via Reddit.
What should we take from Gigantopithecus’s disappearance? In one sense, it is comforting to know that humans are not the cause of all extinctions, and like dinosaurs, all species will meet an eventual end. But I refuse for this to be my conclusion, as such a perspective can easily become an excuse to continue our wanton destruction of the environment and its inhabitants. Rather, I would like the life of Gigantopithecus to remind us that the world is capable of wonders, but only if we allow it time and space. No great ape can populate reclaimed land encrusted with cement towers looming beside sundered mangrove forests; no mammals can thrive on deforested coasts converted to luxury resorts; and no creature will evolve amidst the hammering of karsk stone into a fabricated European amusement park. We never knew Gigantopithecus, and think of all the other fantastic plants and animals we will never know if we don’t get our shit together and stop treating the planet as a commodity instead of a blessing.
