This is amazing, a gigantic species of ape was living concurrently with modern humans for tens of thousands of years!

This discovery was made on the basis of very large teeth that are rare, but sometimes found in the Chinese countryside and sold to traditional medicine shops. The molars on this ape were about 1 inch square! Estimations of it's size make it about the same as a polar bear! (and it was a vegetarian)

http://www.uiowa.edu/%7Ebioanth/comp.jpg

http://www.uiowa.edu/%7Ebioanth/giganto.html
http://www.kandervision.com/gigqna.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantopithecus

It is quite possible that it migrated across the Bering land-bridge before human migration across it, and that isolated population flourished and continued evolving even while gigantopithecus went extinct in south Asia. That, I think is the most reasonable explanation for the Bigfoot phenomenon in North America.
I suppose the same is possible for an isolated group in the Himalayas, hence the Yeti.

That, I think is the most reasonable explanation for the Bigfoot phenomenon in North America.
I suppose the same is possible for an isolated group in the Himalayas, hence the Yeti.

Hmmmmmmmmm......... the Gigantopithecus is " sort of extinct " ........( 200.000 years ago )
I think, the most reasonable explanation of the Bigfoot and the Yeti , is somewhere in the brain of humans .........:m: :p

And then there's all those bones the smithsonian keeps "misplacing"....

Hmmmmmmmmm......... the Gigantopithecus is " sort of extinct " ........( 200.000 years ago )
Hence why I said "isolated group". The species of gigantopithecus is, of course, extinct. The isolated groups, however, may have evolved to suit a particular environment, and the processes of either allopatric or peripatric speciation would make them into an entirely new species, maybe even a new genus, in an entirely different niche and ecosystem.
Of course, to fully verify such a hypothesis, one of these creatures would have to be captured, studied, and have DNA tests to compare its DNA with gigantopithecus DNA.