Comments on: When Will The Next Gigantopithecus Fossils Be Found?

By: DWA

DWA — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 19:56:51 +0000

Fossilization is a fabulously rare process. You won’t become a fossil, period, none of you: I just bet my lifetime income on it.

That said: we have so much evidence for Giganto that Loren’s response to stwolf is spot on. That much evidence of a gorilla mutant is virtually a statistical impossibility.

Here’s what I think should be considered because I bet I am right: the closest fossil relative of the sasquatch isn’t Giganto. In fact, it hasn’t been found yet.

By: wbp

wbp — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:24:51 +0000

Perhaps the paucity of fossil evidence could indicate that the species never existed in large numbers in the first place, which could well explain why its decendants–if, indeed, Yeren, ABSM, Bigfoot, and others are such (and I believe this highly possible)–are so rarely seen.

By: Loren Coleman

Loren Coleman — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 08:13:36 +0000

One jaw? In all, several mandibles and more than 1,500 teeth are sourced to China, India, and Vietnam, with the genus spanning from 6-9 million years ago to 300 thousand years ago.

The premise of stwolf’s argument is groundless.

By: stwolf

stwolf — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 02:06:41 +0000

Has anyone considered the possibility that, once upon a time, there was born a gorilla with acromeglia, and died, and now we have the remains of its jaw and teeth? Is not the simplest explanation to one (1) over-sized gorilla jaw that there was one (1) over-sized gorilla? Why use a single probable fluke of a mutation in history to propose an entirely new species? Consider for a moment how many hundreds of thousands of those things there must have been before and after the mortal existence of that single specimen, if that specimen was not a fluke but a representation of an entire species. Yet, we have but one jaw and some teeth -- far less than the hundreds of thousands of jaws that ought to be there in that general vicinity. Produce said number of jaws, and then I'll concede that it was a distinct species. Until then, it was just a genetic fluke that you enjoy looking at because it could conceivably justify your idea that there are giant apes in that region existing to this day.

By: Krimeg

Krimeg — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 10:52:07 +0000

Yes, Great Apes fossils are rarer than those of other animals. Fossils already don’t preserve well in rainforests, and the fact Great Apes tend to live in low density further complicate things. Another explanation could be their owning in private collections and I guess they have more sentimental values for their owners than any other animals.

By: Spinach Village

Spinach Village — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:33:28 +0000

On a side note, I noticed a couple of similar Gigantopithecus renderings at the end of Destination Truth's "Jersey Devil/The Yeren" episode. I am sure that those could be easily tracked down.