Tag: Endangered and Extinct Species

The Biggest Ape That Ever Lived Was Not Too Big to Fail

Media Library

Standing nearly as tall as a basketball hoop and weighing as much as a grizzly bear, Gigantopithecus blacki was the greatest ape to ever live. For more than a million years during the Pleistocene, Gigantopithecus roamed southern China. But by the time ancient humans reached the region, Gigantopithecus had vanished. To determine why these prodigious primates died out, a team of scientists recently analyzed clues preserved in Gigantopithecus teeth and cave sediment. Their findings, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, reveal that these nearly 10-foot-tall apes were most likely doomed…

The Dugong ‘Sea Cow’ Has Vanished from China’s Waters, Study Says

Chin@Strategy

The dugong, a species of so-called sea cow that roams the ocean floor in Asia and Africa and is said to have inspired ancient legends of mermaids, has been spotted off China’s southern coast for centuries. Not lately, though. A new study suggests that the dugong has become the first large vertebrate to go functionally extinct in China’s coastal waters, the result of a rapid population collapse there that began in the mid-1970s. “Functional extinction” means that even if some dugongs are still alive off China’s coast, their numbers are…