Late apes: Biggest primate ever died off due to 'huge mistake'

"It was three to four times bigger than the teeth from any great ape," Renaud Joannes-Boyau, a researcher at Australia's Southern Cross University, told AFP. Huge apes can't jumpSeeking to establish a timeline of the animal's existence, the team of Chinese, Australian and US scientists collected fossilised teeth from 22 caves. They established that the animal's "extinction window" was between 215,000 and 295,000 years ago, significantly earlier than previously thought. Zhang said this was a "huge mistake" which ultimately led to the animal's extinction. It became even smaller over time, thriving as its massive cousin Gigantopithecus starved.