Registered: Mar 2002
Location: Ljusdal, Sweden
Posts: 196

Disclaimer: I don't know if this is to be taken as serious research or not. A lot of the information there is to be found on Gigantopithecus come from Bigfoot people and such so keep that in mind if you read these links. At least it seems as if they have found some fossils in China but I am unable to determine wether they are real or maybe manipulated in some way.

Anyway:
Did any of you know that a creature like this could have existed?

I had no idea until I watched a show on Discovery on Bigfoot (). Anyway I thought it was interesting and I've tried to dig up a few links that at least seem somewhat serious.

The Gigantopithecus was a huge Primate, maybe 6 or 7 feet tall and weighed somewhere around 500 to 600 lbs. It lived in China about 8 million years ago up until maybe 500 000 years ago. It was discovered by Ralph von Koenigswald, who excavated the "Peking Man" Homo erectus specimens at the site of Zhoukoudian in the 1930s. He found fossil primate teeth for sale (under the name "dragon bones") in an apothecary's store, and was struck by how large they were. If you're interested I have a couple of links with more info and here they are: University of Iowa and State University of New Jersey
I don't know anything about this organisation but the article seems pretty reasonable: Greater Anthropology.

To make things clear: I'm not saying that this would be "Bigfoot" but it seems like a creature like this has existed at some time in history. Maybe it could have inspired to the myth of Bigfoot and Yeti and such.

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Registered: May 2001
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 987

Hey, I remember seeing that Discovery show. It was quite interestin, but I don't remember all that much about it.
Yeah, there probably were primates that were much larger than what we know today. However, whether or not they influenced myths about bigfoot and yetis would depend on when they died off.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Sedona, Arizona
Posts: 18823

If you gave that dude a shave, you would have Czech Reck.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35561

I was about to say that the creature was last seen flying a balloon in Arizona.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: NYC
Posts: 3598

We only covered gigantopithecus very briefly in my human evolution class My professor didn't mention that anthropologists think he may have been BigFoot. I'm going to go read those articles now..... very cool, swingfly

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Oregon. America.
Posts: 2076

"Just Married"

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location:
Posts: 1800

Although I've never found the photos to be legitimate, I accept the possibility that bigfoot/yetti/sasquatch exists. However, when camping/backpacking I find myself more worried about the cougars and bears than I do the "big stink".

The amount we as humans don't and never will know is unfathomable.

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Baba Kueria
Posts: 3146

Maybe bigfoot tales stem from people digging up old bones and creating legends around them, in the same way that dragons came from dinosaur bones?

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Registered: Dec 2001
Location: Baton Rouge
Posts: 1574

You know what they say about guys with big feet...

they bruise the cervix.

Leakynips.

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Registered: Mar 2002
Location: Ljusdal, Sweden
Posts: 196

quote:

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Originally posted by Princess_Heather
...
The amount we as humans don't and never will know is unfathomable.

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Well, I don't know about that

Anyway, to show you that the possibility for undiscovered species that aren't just miniscule shrimps or deep sea monsters:

quote:

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About 10,000 new species are found every year, and most of these are insects and other inconspicuous animals. Usually new species are related to known ones and therefore fit into already-known groups of species such as families. Even in well-known groups such as birds and mammals, new species are still being discovered, at the rate of about 1-5 birds and 1-5 mammals per year (mainly in the tropics). Some recent examples are:

The black-faced lion tamarin of Brazil; a few dozen of these animals were found in 1990 living within 200 miles of Rio de Janeiro.

The Satere marmoset - a squirrel-size marmoset from the Amazon rain forest, the sixth new monkey species to be discovered in Brazil since 1990.

The Peruvian beaked whale - the first new species of whale to be discovered in 28 years - was discovered in 1976 in the south Pacific. It is the smallest beaked whale, only about the size of a small dolphin. Like other beaked whales, it has only two functional teeth, in the lower jaw.

The pseudoryx (saola) - A new species of cow discovered in 1992 in the Vu Quang forest of Vietnam. It looks like a 3-foot tall goat although it is more closely related to cattle. It was first identified from bones and hides from 20 specimens. Then in 1994 two young live specimens were caught and sent to a zoo in Hanoi. Unfortunately they died soon after arrival. The first adult was captured and brought to a zoo in Laos in January 1996, and died 16 days after capture, apparently from starvation. Various expeditions have tried without success to find the animal in the wild. Vietnam is one of Asia's biologically richest countries, and the Vu Quang forest has also revealed several new species of fish.

A new species of miniature deer from Myanmar (Burma) was recently confirmed by DNA testing.

Megamouth shark: Only 11 specimens of this huge (5m-long) filter-feeding shark have been found. The only living one was brought into Dana Point harbor several years ago. You can see a preserved specimen at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.

Cryptic warbler. Not only a new species, but also a new genus of songbird discovered in the rain forest of Madagascar in 1992.

Four new species of fish were recently discovered in Antarctica. This extremely cold environment hosts an amazing diversity of fish species. One group, called notothenioids, now dominates all habitats in the Antarctic ocean. Fish inhabiting the water column elsewhere on earth gain their buoyancy from an air-filled swim bladder, but the notothenioids are all derived from bottom-dwellers without swim bladders, and solve the buoyancy problem differently - by an increase in body fat. Four new species of notothenioids were discovered on recent research cruises.

New videos taken by remote-controlled submersibles show some amazing and huge squid that are different from all known families.

The coelacanth. This very primitive fish with fleshy fins was known only from 80-million year old fossils until in 1938 one showed up in a fish market on an island near Madagascar. History repeated itself in 1998 when another one was found, again in a fish market but this time in Indonesia suggesting the existence of another population in the deep sea, thousands of miles from the first one. Apparently these fish live in caves on the sides of underwater volcanoes.

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From here: Biodiversity and Conservation: A Hypertext Book by Peter J. Bryant. In the quote new videos of a huge squid is mentioned. I recommend that you check that out, it's really fascinating.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: NYC
Posts: 3598

Are you/did you studying anthropology, swing?

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Registered: Mar 2002
Location: Ljusdal, Sweden
Posts: 196

No, never. I considered applying for a course once but something got in the way. I might study it in the future but it would just be because I'm interested in the subject, I'm not interested in a career as an anthropologist.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Montreal
Posts: 2984

Gigantopithecus is a cool name...think I'll name my first born that, we can alll it Giga for short.

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"Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd." R A Wilson (R.I.P)

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: NYC
Posts: 3598

And if people laugh, tell them it's sort for gigabyte...sounds more futuristic

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Registered: Apr 2002
Location:
Posts: 270

There still prolly around somewhere.

Like in Africa or South America.

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Registered: Jan 2002
Location: US
Posts: 3532

Gigantopithecus souds like code for let's fuck.

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