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King Kong Lived? 404

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the still-wishing-for-opposable-thumbs dept.
Agent Provocateur writes "McMaster University recently announced the discovery of the remains of a gigantic ape, measuring over 3 meters tall and weighing up to 600kg, that supposedly co-existed alongside humans." From the article: "Jack Rink, associate professor of geography and earth sciences at McMaster, has determined that Gigantopithecus blackii, the largest primate that ever lived, roamed southeast Asia for nearly a million years before the species died out 100,000 years ago. This was known as the Pleistocene period, by which time humans had already existed for a million years."
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King Kong Lived? More

King Kong Lived?

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  • Makes me wonder.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:04AM (#14032973) Journal
    Makes me wonder if someone was paid to withhold this information untill King Kong's release or is being paid to release it when it's unconfirmed..

  • What killed the giant apes? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Slur ( 61510 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:05AM (#14032976) Homepage Journal

    "Oh no. It wasn't the asteroids. T'was beauty that killed the beast!"

    .

  • Birth of a Legend (Score:4, Interesting)

    by core plexus ( 599119 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:06AM (#14032981) Homepage
    Are not many legends born of some fact? Look at The Bible, for example, and many creation legends (Raven created the Earth sounds a lot like Genesis). Also, many people believe iceworms are mere legends, but it seems that they may provide some insight [suvalleynews.com]

    Bigfoot/Yeti? Sea Monsters?

  • Obligatory... (Score:5, Funny)

    by m00j ( 801234 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:07AM (#14032983)
    I for one welcome our, wait they died out! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

  • Of course (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:08AM (#14032989)
    All sorts of strange creatures existed during the plasticine era. I thought everyone knew that.

  • huh..? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:08AM (#14032990) Journal
    So the articles "We found a tooth" with nothing much more to back it up..? WTF, I know King kong is out soon but what the hell Monkey?

    • Re:huh..? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Markus Registrada ( 642224 )
      It's not much to go on, but... [wynja.com]

      "Since then 3 jaw bones and over a thousand teeth have been recovered, not only in apothecary shops but in situ as well" ... "Gigantopithecus blacki was 10 feet tall and weighed 1,200 pounds. ... The way they arrived at this picture was first to estimate the size of the head from the jaw, and then to use a head/body ratio of 1:6.5 in order to determine the body size."

      Interestingly, "Females may have been half the size of the males, since the teeth fall markedly into two dis

    • Re:huh..? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Belseth ( 835595 )
      Actually the teeth were found some time ago. What's new is the dating information. Dogma claimed that they died out 500,000+ years ago. The new evidence brings the date up to 100,000 years ago. This will now become current dogma given this is not likely to be the date they actually died out. So few teeth and bones have been found it's impossible to even guess at an extinction date but until more bones are found it's the new hard ceiling and any more recent teeth found will be held to a high standard of evid
    • Gigantopithecus [google.com] has been (as the article states) studied since the 30's. Reading the summary, I thought somebody had found some new fossils. Seems to me they did not even "find a tooth", the article is actually about estimating the age of an existing fossil.

  • BMI (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:09AM (#14032994)
    Body-mass index of 66.7. Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater. No wonder they got extinct.
    • My advice? Keep digging - you're sure to find the fossilised Krispy Kreme franchise somewhere nearby... the remains of the ape's SUV is probably still in the parking lot.

  • Oh, the irony... (Score:5, Funny)

    by BrynM ( 217883 ) * on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:10AM (#14032996) Homepage Journal
    I nearly thought it was suddenly April 1 when I read the fourth paragraph:
    Research into Gigantopithecus blackii began in 1935, when the Dutch paleontologist G.H. von Koenigswald discovered a yellowish molar among the "dragon bones" for sale in a Hong Kong pharmacy.
    Hmmm, the 30's and the word "kong" in there twice? Then again, TFA never mentions King Kong (which Gigantopithecus blackii is about 10 feet too short for), so maybe the association is there for subliminal hype. Those marketers are sooooo clever. Damn marketers.

    • Re:Oh, the irony... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by falzer ( 224563 )
      Sounds highly speculative. BTW, Koenig is german for 'king.'

      Did you look around any other sources on the internet to check for other, older references to Koenigswald? Or Gigantopithecus blackii?
      • Sounds highly speculative. BTW, Koenig is german for 'king.'
        Did you look around any other sources on the internet to check for other, older references to Koenigswald? Or Gigantopithecus blackii?
        So the name means 'king' and has 'kong' in it? And it's an antient name? See! The marketers have been hyping it for centuries! And we didn't know! That's sooooooo viral marketing to the extreme! I say again good man: DAMN MARKETERS!

    • Re:Oh, the irony... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MadMoses ( 151207 )

              Research into Gigantopithecus blackii began in 1935, when the Dutch paleontologist G.H. von Koenigswald discovered a yellowish molar among the "dragon bones" for sale in a Hong Kong pharmacy.

      Hmmm, the 30's and the word "kong" in there twice?

      Even stranger: "Koenig" is German for King.
    • Next, there is going to an article about
      "King Kong playing Ping Pong in Hong Kong with his Ding Dong".

    • Research into Gigantopithecus blackii began in 1935, when the Dutch paleontologist G.H. von Koenigswald discovered a yellowish molar among the "dragon bones" for sale in a Hong Kong pharmacy.

      In any complex enough system you can prove almost any relationship if you are willing to ignore various holes in your own logic. Lets welcome the next speaker, a guy who ones watched a low budget documentary on evolution and darwin, here to convince us all that he is right.

      Oh sorry, did I disturb you sense of well being

  • So we metric system users... (Score:5, Funny)

    by OpenSourced ( 323149 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:12AM (#14033007) Journal
    ... can now speak about the 600 Kg gorilla. Good.

  • Yeah. (Score:5, Funny)

    by dirtsurfer ( 595452 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:13AM (#14033012) Journal
    a gigantic ape, measuring over 3 meters tall and weighing up to 600kg, that supposedly co-existed alongside humans."

    We still have these today. You can track one down by listening for its unmistakable cry; "Developers! Developers! Developers!"

  • Theories? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:17AM (#14033031)
    Is there anyone from Kansas with some *plausible* theories about this monkey?

    • Re:Theories? (Score:5, Informative)

      by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @04:19AM (#14033232)
      Is there anyone from Kansas with some *plausible* theories about this monkey?

      'There were giants in the earth in those days' - Genesis 6:4

      • Re:Theories? (Score:2, Informative)

        by somersault ( 912633 )
        That was talking about humans =p Also to do with TFA, does anyone ever believe the accuracy of carbon dating? o_0

      • Re:Theories? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by celticchrys ( 678897 )

        See, even the Bible admits that species can go extinct or change. (which some evolution opponents deny) God must get a good chuckle whenever someone starts howling about how evolution didn't happen, acting like they know just what process their god used to start life. Either that, or he is continually disappointed because so many of us refuse to see the clues left lying around for us to learn from, wasting these brains we were given.
        I

    • Re:Theories? (Score:2, Informative)

      by TheZorch ( 925979 )
      Easy, during the periods after the demise of the dinosaurs there was an explosion of mamallian life on Earth. Animals just got bigger and bigger.

      There was a species of sloth that lived while humans roamed the Earth that was bigger than an elephant from today. Mamoths, big hairy elephant ancestors, roamed the land and they were twice the size of today elephants. A lot of animals were really huge during these periods. They are called Megafauna. Only two Megafauna from this time exists today; the Blue Wha

    • Re:Theories? (Score:5, Funny)

      by apflwr ( 930636 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @04:37AM (#14033281)
      Is there anyone from Kansas with some *plausible* theories about this monkey?

      It couldn't fit on the Ark.
  • You can find out more (including how Kong got his artifical heart and found love while on the run from the army) in the excellent documentary, King Kong Lives [imdb.com]. Its a mystery to me how this fine movie missed out on the Best Factual Presentation Oscar in 1986.

  • I see 'em all the time... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ChePibe ( 882378 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:25AM (#14033064)
    I see apes like that all the time here on campus. But we don't have a fancy name for them - here they're called, "offensive linemen."

  • PromoPower! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jlraptor ( 829745 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:34AM (#14033094)
    Anyone else hope this turns out to be some gimmick to boost interest in the King King movie?

    What the hell are we gonna do with ten thousand angel ashtrays?

  • Body Mass Index (Score:4, Informative)

    by Zog The Undeniable ( 632031 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:42AM (#14033121)
    With a BMI of 600/(3^2) = 66.6 he was one big fat ape (the healthy limit for a human is 25). I guess these creatures were intelligent enough to invent fast food and maple syrup pancakes.

  • Not "recently discovered" (Score:5, Informative)

    by 1u3hr ( 530656 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:42AM (#14033125)
    According to the crack Slashdot editorial team: "McMaster University recently announced the discovery of the remains of a gigantic ape".

    In fact, TFA says "Research into Gigantopithecus blackii began in 1935". (70 years ago, recent on the geological scale, perhaps.) The article is about a new dating method that determined that the ape "roamed southeast Asia for nearly a million years before the species died out 100,000 years ago", the same period humans were developing, and thus the possibility of interaction, or that we wiped them out.

  • Oh geez! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by thej1nx ( 763573 )
    First any remains of a dwarf are automatically dubbed "hobbit" by the media and now a giant ape remains are dubbed "King Kong"

    What is the fetish of present-day media with dubbing scientific discoveries and news with hollywood inspired names ????

    What is up next ?
    "antique car found in a warehouse!" - "WE FOUND HERBIE!!!! "
    "Giant crocodile remains found"- "GODZILLA LIVES! IT IS TRUE!!! REMAINS BEING SENT TO TOKYO!!!"
    "150 years old skeleton of a cowboy discovered" - "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MAN WITH

  • This is very old news (Score:5, Funny)

    by batmanmiles ( 856139 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @03:58AM (#14033166)
    The hell is this doing on Slashdot? It's in my freaking anthro textbook, fer chrissakes. My textbook.
  • Back in my day, here in Texas, we called them Nose Guards...

    Oh, that's right I was a Nose Guard.

    Spock the, if I just had more speed I could have gone pro, Baptist....

  • yeah right... (Score:5, Funny)

    by b4stard ( 893180 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @04:10AM (#14033203)
    ... next you're gonna tell me godzilla lived. Like there ever were a bunch of giant lizard roaming the earth. That's just silly.
    • ... next you're gonna tell me godzilla lived. Like there ever were a bunch of giant lizard roaming the earth. That's just silly.

      Gojira isn't a dinosaur. Superficially he looks quite similar to a T. rex, but he's a lot bigger, and has radioactive fire breath. No evidence has ever been found to support nuclear combustible respiration in any fossilised saurian.

  • some more info ... (Score:3, Informative)

    by gerddie ( 173963 ) on Tuesday November 15, 2005 @05:07AM (#14033352)
    Resently, i heard a talk of Russell Ciochon [uiowa.edu] about the Giganto [uiowa.edu]. He was also addressing the possibility that humans and Giganto might have co-occoured in the area. He said that he now thinks that the teeth subjected to early humans might actually belong to some other, smaller ape.
  • While it's perfectly possible, there is very little evidence to go on - a few teeth and jaw bones. Without a find of much more than this, I'd suggest this is case not proven/wishful thinking and would not be surprised if the fossils turned out to belong to a giant panda or perhaps even a sheep. The article does not inspire confidence with stuff like "This was known as the Pleistocene period, by which time humans had already existed for a million years." For "humans" perhaps one should say "the forerunners o
  • Where'd you think Peter Jackson got the star for his next film?

  • Big Ape (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Edman ( 931166 )
    The "gigantopithecus blackii" is a long known species, and scientist already proposed the fact pre-sapiens humanoid species did often have contact. I don't know why this old "news" is dug out again. some kind of "getting-people-to-the-cinema"-publicity for the new King Kong movie by Peter Jackson? by the way, the old one (from the seventies)was great...
  • I feel short changed to the tune of about 57m.
  • All your blondes are belong to Kong!
  • Honestly, why is this news? There's absolutely nothing new here. This would be like posting a story like "Jobs, Wozniak found computer company" and acting like it's breaking news.

    I think I read this at least four years ago: The Bigfoot-Giganto Hypothesis [bfro.net].
  • I was even engaged with her.

    She was not that hot, though.

  • This is really more on the Mighty Joe Young size scale.
  • I heard about this find years ago.

    Heck, it's been on the Discovery Channel at least once or twice.

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