Scientists solve monkey mystery

The animal ‘Gigantopithecus' lived 200,000 years ago. It was like a big monkey. But what made it die? A new study has the answer.

Gigantopithecus was three metres tall. It was 300 kilograms. It lived in forests in Asia.

In the 1930s, a scientist found a big tooth. It was four times the size of a monkey's tooth. Scientists found about 2,000 more teeth. They were from the same animal. But they still had questions.

Professor Zhang Yingqi's a dinosaur expert. He worked on the study. The team studied the environment for Gigantopithecus. They studied before and after its time too.

Zhang Yingqi: "The cause of Gigantopithecus’s extinction is mainly the stress. Because when the environments changed, the food that Gigantopithecus preferred became less, and less, less, I mean the variety, both the variety and the quantity became less. So Gigantopithecus didn’t have enough food, preferred food to eat."

The climate changed. But Gigantopithecus couldn't travel far to get different food. It was too big. It had to start eating unhealthy food. That's why it died, says Professor Zhang.

Zhang Yingqi: "So he made a huge mistake by relying on the fall-back food, which is a very fibrous and less nutritious food. So, the population experienced, experienced, experienced chronic long-term stress. So the population became smaller and smaller and finally he went extinct."

Gigantopithecus' story is important today because of climate change. Weniger anzeigen