Extinct giant ape directly linked to the living orangutan

Date: November 13, 2019

Source: University of Copenhagen The Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

By using ancient protein sequencing, researchers have retrieved genetic information from a 1.9 million year old extinct, giant primate that used to live in a subtropical area in southern China. The genetic information allows the researchers to uncover the evolutionary position of Gigantopithecus blacki, a three-meter tall and may be up to 600 kg heavy primate, revealing the orangutan as its closest, living relative.

It is the first time that genetic material this old has been retrieved from a warm, humid environment. The study is published in the scientific journal Nature, and the results are groundbreaking within the field of evolutionary biology, according to Frido Welker, Postdoc at the Globe Institute at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences and first author of the study.

'Primates are relatively close to humans, evolutionary speaking. With this study, we show that we can use protein sequencing to retrieve ancient genetic information from primates living in subtropical areas even when the fossil is two million years old. Until now, it has only been possible to retrieve genetic information from up to 10,000-year-old fossils in warm, humid areas. This is interesting, because ancient remains of the supposed ancestors of our species, Homo sapiens, are also mainly found in subtropical areas, particularly for the early part of human evolution. This means that we can potentially retrieve similar information on the evolutionary line leading to humans', says Frido Welker.

Continued

Six new ancient primate species capture climate change pressures

MAY 6, 2016

by Chuck Bednar

Antropoid primates– the forerunners of modern apes, monkeys and humans – first appeared in Asia, but what happened to them when climate change rendered much of the region too cold to be hospitable? A study published this week in the journal Science may have the answer.

“At the Eocene-Oligocene boundary, because of the rearrangement of Earth's major tectonic plates, you had a rapid drop in temperature and humidity,” K. Christopher Beard, senior curator at the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute and co-author of the new study, explained in a statement. “Primates like it warm and wet, so they faced hard times around the world.”

In North America and Europe, the creatures died out when this cooling began approximately 34 million years ago, but managed to survive in Africa and Southern Asia. Now, the discovery of a half-dozen new fossil primate species in southern China had revealed that the transitional period nearly wiped out these creatures, forcing them to migrate to Africa to survive and evolve.

Beard and his colleagues spent more than a decade working at a site in the Yunnan Province of southern China, where they managed to unearthed jaw and tooth fragments belonging to six new species of primates that help explained what happened to our forerunners during this period.

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