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China Daily | Updated: 2019-11-18 07:26

Heritage: Great apes give genetic secrets

Chinese and Danish scientists have successfully retrieved genetic material from a 1.9-million-year-old fossil of Gigantopithecus blacki, a species of great ape. The finding, published in Nature last week, marks the first time that such ancient protein evidence from fossils in the subtropics has been retrieved. Scientists said it sheds new light on the origins and evolution of the long-extinct species. With the evidence, scientists are able to demonstrate that Gigantopithecus is a sister group to orangutans, with a common ancestor about 10 million years ago. That implies that the divergence of Gigantopithecus from Pongo forms part of the Miocene radiation of great apes, according to the paper. Presumed to be more than 2 meters tall and weighing more than 300 kilograms, giant apes are the largest primates known to have lived on earth. Their fossils date from 2 million to 300,000 years ago.

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