Will we have a clearer picture within out lifetimes?
>>5109832context? is this jaw the only piece of evidence we have about this particular taxon having existed?
>>5109901We only know about the taxon from teeth and jaw fragments.
>>5109832It's from china so probably not. I bet all the individuals to ever fossilize have already been grinded into dickpills
>>5109832gigapongo
How do we know this thing was actually huge and not just an average great ape with an unusually large jaw?
>>5109913humanoids proportions,brainlet
I fucking hate porcupines
>>5109913What is even the point of considering that possibility when it is the least likely?
>>5109906What if that is the true form of pongo and the ones we have are the insular dwarfism versions?
>>5109921How is an oversized jaw less likely than it being at least twice the size of any other known ape?
>>5109924Because just a big ape is the simplest answer
>>5109936Do not get me wrong. It COULD be an ape with a giant jaw, but when remains are this fragmentary you have to go with the easiest answer until you get more material.
I miss him :(
>>5109937>imagine how thick their neck would have to be to support that>what could they have even been eating to support that line of evolutionOh shit he's real innit
>>5109832Looks like my ex wife!
>>5109913>>5109924>>5109937retard moron braindead idiot
Can someone explain to me how jaw bones consistently are like the only thing found in fossil hunting 99% of the time?
>>5110248It's almost nearly solid mass of cortical bone. So it's dense in comparison. Most bones are like a shell around marrow. Maybe they ate each other and realized the mandible just didn't have enough marrow to be worth their time.
>>5110248>>5110266besides that, jaws and teeth are extremely distinctive and can pinpoint a clade, even a species very easily (for mammals in particular), so when you find one you know what you've got in your hands. By comparison most other bone fragments are just "uhhhh a chunk of femur I think, a big one", and in the absence of other information they'd get assigned to whatever appropriately-sized fauna is known to have existed in the area already, it's much harder to proclaim a new species from those.
>>5110266No need for cannibalism btw, predators and scavengers also wouldn't bother with marrowless bones.
>>5109832 think it's interesting that it doesn't seem like it had big fangs like modern apes do
>>5110431Female apes (and juveniles) usually lack the huge pointy fangs that males have.
>>5110431Incidentally that gap in the teeth that Giganthopitecus has probably indicates it DID have sizable fangs (on the upper teeth), here's a similar arrangement
>>5110433>>5110436Interesting
>>5109922We have enough bracketing evidence that this extent of gigantism was exclusively sivapithecin and modern orangutans are mostly bigger than their direct ancestors and extinct pongines.
>>5110112see:>>5110436Meganthropus was once thought to be a quarter to half tonne hominin. Even as a pongine its mandible is barely longer than an orangutan's plus its length is mostly due to disproportionately large molars, and its overall size now estimated at around or slightly smaller than that of an orangutan.
>>5109832We do. My friend Keith was sleeping in the Appalachian mountains and one of them tried to tear up his sleeping bag to suck his dick.
