China's huge mysterious extinct ape 'Giganto' was an orangutan cousin

Genetic material extracted from a 1.9 million-year-old fossil tooth from southern China shows that the world's largest-known ape - an extinct creature dubbed "Giganto" that once inhabited Southeast Asia - was an oversized cousin of today's orangutans. The findings, announced on Wednesday, shed light on a species, called Gigantopithecus blacki, that has been shrouded in mystery because its fossil remains are so sparse - just a collection of teeth and remnants of several lower jaws. By some estimates, Gigantopithecus reached up to 10 feet (3 meters) tall, making it not only the largest-known ape but the biggest primate, the mammalian group that includes lemurs, monkeys, apes and humans.
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