South China’s giant apes, a distant human cousin, wiped out by failure to adapt to changing landscape, study finds

The largest primates ever to walk the Earth went extinct about a quarter of a million years ago because they struggled to adapt their food habits to environmental changes, a new study has found.

The Gigantopithecus blacki – a very distant human ancestor – stood as tall as 3 metres (nearly 10 feet) and weighed up to 300kg (660 pounds). They used to be found in Southeast Asia including southern China between 2 million and 330,000 years ago.