Many researchers have identified Gigantopithecus Blacki as a NAPE, North American Ape. If not G. Blacki himself then most certainly a relative that may have evolved from Blacki or someone who just had G. Blacki as a great-grandparent. G. Blacki is Bigfoot.
G. Blacki is only known to scientists from a couple of jaw bones and perhaps several thousand teeth. These teeth are significantly larger than any teeth from any other great ape. Blacki lived in what is now China and Viet Nam. According to the folks in the white lab coats Blacki died out about 100,000 years ago, give or take a few 1000 years.
For a thousand years or more, Chinese apothecaries had been calling the teeth of G. Blacki dragon teeth because of their sheer size. They would prescribe differing amounts of ground dragon teeth and mix it with other items and claim a cure for impotence or male pattern baldness or something.
When you think that G. Blacki went extinct 100,000 years ago it does seem a long time ago however, 100,000 years is like a mere grain of sand in the Sahara desert. Given that, it might be possible for a relict group of G. Blacki to have survived in North America.
The case has been made, by those who believe, that G. Blacki is the only ape to have crossed the Bering land bridge during the last ice age when such a bridge might have been available. They would have migrated over time from China through Russia to Siberia. Then they would have crossed from Siberia to Alaska and then just followed the Rocky Mountains south.
G. Blacki has been described as 10 feet tall and weighing as much as 1200 pounds. By all accounts, this was a huge beast and, oddly, it is said to be related to the Orangutan. He is ape like in that he is covered with hair and does apparently look like an ape. We don’t know if G. Blacki was bipedal or not and this is because we have yet to find hip bones which would speak to locomotion.
The descriptions of Bigfoot and other NAPES are very similar to that of G. Blacki, except for the size. The idea is that living conditions, such as temperature and food supply, had changed enough from China to force B. Blacki into evolving into a slightly smaller animal in North America.
It was in 1952 the Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans first suggested the link between G. Blacki and the Yeti. In 1968, Bigfoot researcher and author John Green recommended that other researchers consider a link between Bigfoot and G. Blacki.
Since then G. Blacki has become the de facto relative of Bigfoot. Recently there have been other creatures that, in some circles, are thought to have been Bigfoot. But for the most part Gigantopithecus Blacki remains the ancestor of choice. That said, it must be pointed out that anything we think we know about G. Blacki is almost all speculation and based on the teeth and those few pieces of jaw bone that scientists have collected.
