Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The International Business Times claims that Gigantopethicus, a huge ape which died out 100,000 years ago in China, may instead have been driven by Climate Change to cross the Bering Strait.
According to the IBT;
Gigantopithecus, Asia’s ‘King Kong,’ died due to climate change
The biggest ape to roam the Earth went extinct 100,000 years ago because the species was not able to adapt to just consuming savannah grass after climate change hit its favoured diet of forest fruit, according to scientists. Weighing five times as much as an adult man and standing up to three metres tall, Gigantopithecus, the closest nature ever came to producing a real King Kong, was still not invincible enough to survive drastic climate changes.
The species lived in semi-tropical forests in southern China and mainland Southeast Asia. Scientists say that the Gigantopithecus was the closest modern cousin of orangutans. Experts around the world did not know why the animal went extinct. In fact, when fossils were discovered in the 1930s, the Gigantopithecus’ teeth were sold as dragon’s teeth in Hong Kong.
…
However, other apes and early humans in Africa survived the transition by switching their diets to eat the leaves, roots and grass grown in their new environment, Phys.org reports. The Gigantopethicus lacked the physiological ability and ecological flexibility to resist stress and food shortage. Other experts, most notably Grover Krantz, suggested that the Gigantopithecus may have survived and migrated from Asia over the Bering straits.
Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com.au/gigantopithecus-asias-king-kong-died-due-climate-change-1497636
Grover Krantz believed in Bigfoot. During his career Krantz made serious contributions to anthropology, but his efforts to prove the existence of giant apes living in the American wilderness, have largely been dismissed.
In the field of Anthropology, it takes more evidence than a theoretical model, a few questionable proxies (plaster casts of alleged “footprints”), and a dodgy film reel, to establish a theory as “settled science”.
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My, my… How gratuitously in-vogue to learn something like that!
So just where in North America or the Americas, have Gigantopithecus skeletal remains been unearthed so far, and how many species of Gigantipithecus in the Americas, are known ??
Enquiring minds want to know; Science and all that; you know, observation and experiment being the crux of it, so to speak !?
G
Borneo, Washington, DC, by coincidence.
Hi big G (whatever happened to g>G ?)
Science may not be wrong, it just needs regular updating.
“For the first time, astronomers have seen dim flickers of visible light from near a black hole, researchers with an international science team said. In fact, the light could be visible to anyone with a moderate-size telescope.”
Perhaps black holes aren’t that powerful after all
http://www.space.com/31532-black-hole-visible-light-telescope-discovery.html
Probably there are bones buried in Central Park after King Kong was killed in Manhattan! 🙂
With Jimmy Hoffa
FWIW Bernal Díaz del Castillo tells of having seen among Aztec possessions the bones of giants in his ” “The True History of the Conquest of New Spain.” One wonders if this might have something to do with that.
This really hits home as to why Climate Change is SO BAD and must be avoided at all costs. 97% of Scientists agree that since Gigantopethicus, with his overtly developed mental capacity, couldn’t adapt to Climate Change, his distant cousins (Gigantopatheticus) Homo Sapiens obviously aren’t developed enough to be able to figure it out. WERE DOOMED…..
Well since you ask; vuc old chap, some times I’m not in the crescendo mood, so I just light off everything at once.
So it’s like swimming in the ocean with the sharks; there ain ‘t NO such thing, as 75% of top speed !!
Well that’s what all of the survivors claim.
G<g
Well, Bigfoot “science” and current climate “science” DO share some commonalities, so…
exactly….
“. The Gigantopethicus lacked the physiological ability and ecological flexibility to resist stress and food shortage.”
…they don’t know that either
Don’t tell anyone, but I’m fairly certain that one just moved in down the street aways….
I think he put his big foot on it.
PiperPaul
“Well, Bigfoot “science” and current climate “science” DO share some commonalities, so…”
Latitude
“exactly….
“. The Gigantopethicus lacked the physiological ability and ecological flexibility to resist stress and food shortage.”
…they don’t know that either”
That is not Bigfoot “science” talk-talk, that is Evolution “science” talk-talk, guys . . that’s how Evolutionist lingo reads (in the mass media anyway), it seems to me. All manner of speculative “stories” phrased as though known scientific truths. Climate science is not the first realm of “consensus science” to be hyped to high heaven, so to speak ; )
So, if Bigfoot hadn’t listened to Al Gore he’d still be in China, perhaps walled in?
Hmmm…
Isn’t a ManBearPig a direct descendant of Bigfoot.
Oh no…Not Yeti, not yeti, not… DOOMED
so how much are the modern orangutan cousins demanding from developed countries as compensation for their ancestor climate refugees ??
Bananas.
Methinks they’re testing the water for their big release:
That Unicorns did drown in the Great Flood, which in turn was caused by Global Warming.
But: did they all drown? Team coverage tonight!
I KNOW that three of them are in my pen out back, but you need some Jack Daniels’ to see them.
@Gold rider? Are them the same unicorns I took out to see the rabbit hole and the gold brick road?
Global Warming … nay. It was climate change.
[could’nt resist]
Climate Change Forced Bigfoot to Migrate to America
his son is Donald Trump, you can see the family likeness in the hair & teeth in the link –
http://www.ibtimes.com.au/gigantopithecus-asias-king-kong-died-due-climate-change-1497636
We’ll need King Kong to fight the Godzilla El Nino!
Perhaps the coming La Nina will be dubbed “Wonder Woman”.
I recall watching a 1960’s program by Bill Burrud called “Animal Planet”, I believe, that showed a man explaining how he made Bigfoot tracks. He put on the hair suit and strapped big, stiff footprint soles and made a trail of tracks in the moist soil. The man claimed he had been doing it for some time. Cannot find the film. It was entertaining.
In the 1960’s?
It’s much easier to make a big faux pas today.
Just make a climate model.
The guy didn’t get enough attention by making the prints so he needed to go public with his fraud to try for more attention.
If Mann is ignored it may be that he would try honesty (and admit to his fraud) as an attention getter.
Do you mean “Michael Bigfoot-in-Mouth Mann”??
‘because the species was not able to adapt to just consuming savannah grass after climate change hit its favoured diet of forest fruit,’
‘The species lived in semi-tropical forests in southern China and mainland Southeast Asia’
I don’t know much about Bigfoot. But if he couldn’t adapt to climate change; how come he is supposed to have survived in the snowpacks, as stories seem to attest?
Gosh you are picky.
🙂
Good grief lee, its a climate story – you’re not supposed to ask question… 🙂
So if BF was a super Orangutangle type of critter, Just how did they actually perambulate across the Bering Bridge, given that they would need a more or less continuum of trees to swing across above ground level.
Was perhaps George of the Jungle a BF Gigantopithecus Orangutangle ??
G
Isn’t there a technical term for how Gibbons etc do the GotJ bit . It’s very pretty to watch.
Brachiation is the word You’re looking for George .
I did wonder how many semi-tropical forests there were in Alaska,
Krantz should spend less time watching 1950’s horror films on television.
and more time welcoming our insect overlords
Well, insects hate the cold, after all.
I read a different source for this story today and it mentioned that Gigantopithecus existed from possibly nine million years ago until about 100,000 years ago. That means it had survived the climate change of many prior glacial and inter-glacial episodes. So… why did it go extinct only after the last inter-glacial?
That was an honest question, but my guess is it will soon be pushed as the fault of humans.
even though things like mosquitoes/malaria are going to kill us all, now…
….things like this never happened in the past
why did it go extinct
=================
BBQed they tasked like chicken.
H.R. (And others above)
Most likely, their history lives on in the world-wide tribal memory tales of ogres, trolls, and giants. (In Europe, see Neanderthals for a similar “reason” to tell tales of the like monsters. )
Ever see a dragon bone? Look at the head, shoulder bones and arched back bones of a fossilized dinosaur.
Boogeyman legends designed to scare children from venturing too far into the woods morph into a pastime for gullible people/people who enjoy fooling others.
Maybe it’s simply that the time of the Megafauna was over. All giant species started dying off a couple of million years ago, some survived longer than others.
You could reasonably say that the Elephant and Rhino, while being large land animals are also the “Last of the Megafauna” and doomed to die. (With or without the help of poachers.)
So the real question H.R. is “Why did all the Megafauna die off?”. Man didn’t do it as they started their march to extinction well before any modern form of human had evolved. They continued to die off even in areas where there were no humans. Why?
‘You could reasonably say that the Elephant and Rhino, while being large land animals are also the “Last of the Megafauna” and doomed to die. (With or without the help of poachers.) ‘
My coach in high school used a rechargeable megafauna during practice and it always died out….
The end of mega fauna probably coincides with the rise of the eurasian gray wolf and modern humans. The latter arrived to Asia too late to be responsible but there might be fossils further south in jungle that survived that are yet to be discovered bringing the actual extinction to well after the world began cooling.
Both are very good at hunting large animals by working together and then when the two species combined, the fat lady started singing.
Just read that the number of fossils of this animal are very few and some were found in Thailand. It looks like the youngest fossil being about the same time as the last glaciation began is just a coincidence.
They were hunted down and eaten by other (smaller but more violent and voracious) hominids which had become carnivorous due to the alleged lack of forest fruits.
All this seems to be an awful lot of wild speculation based on a reanalysis of some fossil teeth. But then I’m not a biologist.
Perhaps the revolutionary Red Guards did it! 🙂
It will be conclusively shown that SUVs, trucks, and locomotives killed many Giganto Apes as these apes attempted to cross major interstates and RR tracks.
But most were killed by acid rain – produced by the burning of coal in power plants; the acid polluted all the vegetation the Giganto Apes consumed, gave them all ulcers and they all died.
Just more evidence that humans are killing the planet and everything on it; but we already knew that, didn’t we. This, we know, is settled.
Other experts, most notably Grover Krantz, suggested that the Gigantopithecus may have survived and migrated from Asia over the Bering straits.
===
So the cold came down from the north and killed the fruit trees it was eating…
…so it went north, into the cold and less food….to cross the Bering straits
…head wall
Maybe he/she/they hijacked Noah’s Ark
+1
Since when is this “news” ?
The Sasquatch knows there is no such thing as Bigfoot.
Not anymore.
Of course Sasquatch is real – we even named a Canadian province after him!
Thus came the ManBearPig.
Al Gore was right!
Mark Jan. 25 on your calendar!
To be fair, Lewandowski needs to conduct some study ( if in fact he is competent ) assessing the correlation between involvement in fantastical pursuits and belief in CAGW.
I conjecture that the nose dripping twaddle purveyor, sees nothing wrong with a Bigfoot believer ALSO believing in CAGW.
That is right up there with panspermia, & Niribu cataclysm.
“To be fair, Lewandowski needs to conduct some study ( if in fact he is competent ) ”
A fact not in evidence at this time, although probably implied by some computer model somewhere.
Lew makes a much better study subject than author.
Climate Psychology 101. How Climate Studies Arrive at Pre-ordained Conclusions.
1. Write the conclusion
2. Apply for a grant to prove the conclusion
3. Discard all evidence that contradicts the conclusion
4. Publish the remain evidence to prove the conclusion is correct.
This process starts by studying the funding body, to see what they believe to be true. Because funding bodies never fund something they believe to be false. Once you know what they believe, then write a conclusion in support of this belief. This ensures you will get funding.
Then, once you have the funding, by selectively choosing your evidence you can easily prove the conclusion to be true. this guarantees that you will pass peer review, because your peers know that their funding is tied as well to the beliefs of the funding bodies. They cannot take a contrary position without risking their own funding.
And once you are published, your positive results will encourage the funding body, proving that their beliefs were correct, guaranteeing a warm reception the next time you apply for funding.
The key is to recognize that the process starts and ends with recognizing what the funding body already believes to be true, and proposing a study to reinforce this belief.
early humans in Africa survived the transition by switching their diets to eat the leaves, roots and grass
======================
no, they switched from eating plants to eating animals, using the newly domesticated fire to do our hunting out on the plains. We didn’t need to outrun our prey, anything that couldn’t outrun fire became dinner.
I think they developed the encirclement and clubbing technique for hunting. Fire can burn in too many directions!
Wrong. Fires are directional. Investigators of fire scenes all know that the least burned parts are where fires begin. That is, they grow outwards rapidly, in one direction only. The exception is anything like a bomb such as a nuclear bomb. These explosions make their own ‘wind’ in all directions so the center point is where ignition happens.
As to the animals becoming prey, we didn’t need to outrun them in the sprint, or burn them out, unless they were large herd animals, because we could outlast them in the distance. Even in the 1960s, a thoroughly trained distance runner has chased a horse to death, and Abbebe Bilika, the Ethiopian marathoner, as a boy, ran small birds to collapse. He then popped them in a bag and took the, full sack home to Mom to cook dinner. Prey animals, and most predators, are good in sprints for getting out of an ambush, or enabling one. Humans, wild dog packs, and other coursing hunters, do not bother with the body mods for the strength-to-weight ratio needed for ambush, but run their prey until they drop, or until pursuit comes within range of a carry-able projectile.
That we then still had to turn antelope into dinner meant that we needed more brains, so that heat prostration in the older parts of the brain would still leave sufficient capability to get killing done without getting skewered ourselves. No need for the scenario of , …”Gee, Fred, we really did run it down, …we really did, ..uhhhh, …wadda we do now Fred????? Those horns he’s thrashing around look sharp”
+1
Moreover preys like antelope tend to run in fairly small and predictable circles, meaning a pair of hunter can easily relay in the hunt
because we could outlast them in the distance
====================
it would be interesting to see if a human distance runner could in fact run down a horse in below zero temperatures. I suspect the horse would do better, as compared to a race run in for example in 30C temperatures. I expect the warmer temperatures would be an advantage to the human.
this single fact makes fears over CAGW complete rubbish. Humans are tropical mammals. One of the best adapted to high temperatures. It is cold temperatures that we are not adapted to, and can only survive outside the tropics using technology.
I wonder if a comparative study of this sort would go a long way to easing fears over global warming? Human endurance racing other animals at different ambient temperatures. If temperatures were hot enough, I expect most mammals, perhaps even wolves, would have trouble over distance against humans, due to our efficiency at shedding heat.
What a charming story!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_So_Stories
Sine Arrow — quite right. Stamina and relentless persistence were the keys. Plus human heat-tolerance surpassed that of most animals (pursuing animals in the heat of the day).
Genus Homo switched to eating animal fat before it discovered fire. The critical invention was of the stone “hand ax” capable of smashing scavenged large animal bones to get the brains and marrow, and for digging up tubers and roots. Increased fat intake allowed bigger brains and eventually control of fire.
But even before fire, humans could run down live prey by working in groups.
Was this “climate change” that they’re talking about caused by humans back then?
I didn’t think so.
(Just as it isn’t caused by humans now!)
Of course it was AGW!!!!!
The science is settled. How on earth can you be so ignorant.
Everything “bad” on earth (in which “bad” is defined by the liberal progressive elites as anything they choose to be “bad”) is caused by human activity (but NOT any activities of liberal progressive ruling elites; they are incapable of doing anything “bad,” including flying in private airplanes, owning multiple very large homes, owning/renting very large pleasure boats, driving their own giant Cadillac Escalades, being chauffeured about in giant Cadillac Escalades, hiring the best tax accountants and lawyers to avoid paying taxes while they promote ever greater tax rates, etc. etc.).
As risk of being serious, I’ve heard we just used to run after them (think marathon) until they were too tired to move.
Then the kill was easy.
Wrong ???
Correct, but acknowledging this would mean admitting humans are one of the most heat adapted species on the planet, easily able to cope with slightly warmer temperatures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting
The curious thing is that humans are one of the very few mammals to have lost body hair without becoming aquatically immersed for significant portions of their daily life. The running down of prey for organized social groups is a cake walk and the practice is well within living memory of North American aboriginal practice. Heck my mother used to tell stories of Apache Indians that worked on her father’s ranch catching rabbits alive so she and her sister’s could pet them. My great Grandfather and his buddies did the same in Arizona with Pronghorn antelope in the late 20’s in Arizona. The difficulty of doing these things sometimes gets exaggerated by Anthropologists who have lost track of simple rural living a couple of generations ago. Perhaps European academic tradition is to blame since those sort of solutions are further back in European collective memory.
And we sweat easily! Another cooling factor. And yes, being naked has a lot to do with being in a warm climate. Once humanoids figured out how to skin animals and then wear these skins, did we expand our base outside of the warmest parts of Africa.
esmnews: Now there’s a guy who never had to brush and curry the horses after a day’s work. They sweat plenty easily. I don’t know that we have come up with more than plausible stories as why humans are naked and some of those, on the face of it, don’t seem to pass muster. One thing for sure: that meat fed growing brain had an awful lot to do with adaptability.
It has several factors. From what I have read, bipedalism is more efficient that quadrapedalism, then we evolved tendons and cartilage in the feet and lower legs that allowed us to store and release energy while running, making us even more efficient at running long distances. And finally the loss of hair on our bodies allowed us to sweat more efficiently.
I haven’t read this anywhere, but I suspect that the fact that we started eating meat allowed our guts to shrink, which left more room for a bigger heart and lungs.
I seem to remember an anthropology argument that creatures as large as the giant apes require LOTS of calories to survive. It is really hard to picture giant apes crossing a frozen Bering land bridge to find some berries. No, they would have gone south, or they would have died. After all, stuff doesn’t grow in the winter very well.
As a body gets bigger, it’s surface to mass ratio shrinks. Which would mean less heat lost to the environment.
Not really. Maybe less heat per unit of surface, but that depends on the calories burned. More mass, more calories, the more food required to fuel that massive body.
So Bigfoot had enough fire to change the climate….they should have survived much longer.
I thought it was my excessive teenage consumption of fuel in muscle cars that warmed the planet.
I feel far less significant now.
Hey, I hear that Hillary Clinton is going to get to the bottom of UFOs and Area 51. It shouldn’t take much to get her to pander to the “Bigfoot” crazies.
Hillary (and her man) get to the bottom of all sorts of things.
[“.. into the bottom of of all sorts of thongs? .mod]
Valentines day, around 1998. I booked a romantic meal for my partner and I in a local restaurant (Melbourne). I asked what the dress code was and was told “no thongs”. I thought “What the hell has my underwear have to do with anything?”. Of course, this was Australia and “thongs” are “flip-flops” (Footware). I had a good chuckle about that.
[“.. into the bottom of of all sorts of thongs? .mod]
Bottom feeders of any and all sorts.
Besides….. What difference does it make?
What do they mean? “Forced” bigfoot! Climate change obviously “presented bigfoot with the possibility”. And bigfoot was bright enough to grasp it.
I doubt anyone here actually read the paper in
Quaternary International which had nothing whatsoever to do with Bigfoot.
What is so surprising about that?
The use of the word “may” in that excerpt ?
I was always pretty sure Bigfoot never existed, now I “may” not be sure.
In fact I’m leaning toward the theory that the Sasquatch caused its demise.
well maybe nothing; maybe this report, compared to the paper, is just another example of the corruption of ideas by journalists. OTOH one has to ask how did this species survive the several ice ages that preceded the last one? The suspicion would be that something new came into the situation and the paper makes no attempt that I see to address that. However it seems to be just a hypothesis and the IBT has no business presenting it as fact as they do. Plus “climate change” is a coded term in journalism and doesn’t refer to the onset of an ice age when used by journalists today.
But we are smarter.
We learned how to use fire to keep ourselves warm, cook, and make steel.
Suck my ash, Gigantopithecus.
Hey, I thought Piltdown Man made Gigantopithecus extinct.
Whoa nellie. First we had to learn how to make iron.
Actually it was the loose women and the cheap gas.