Thoughts on "Californipithecus"

I'm not sure where I heard it---maybe an Eons video---but I heard that Gigantopithecus lasted until maybe 300kya, where the"kya" is "thousand years ago." Only 300,000 years ago?

So, the "...pithecus" suffix means "ape", and the most common word with this suffix is likely Australopithecus, the name given to a hominid genus---an ape that stood upright. Australopithecus afarensis has yielded a vast array of fossils, and even Lucy herself, the famous remains named for the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is an A. afarensis.

Gigantopithecus was a rather large ape, probably the biggest ever discovered judging by the name, and looks to have resembled a huge orangutan, like a supersized orangutan crossed with a a gorilla---the hunched over knuckle walk of a big silverback with the wizened face of an orangutan. 

I was under the impression that this primate had gone extinct further back than 300kya, seeing as how us, Homo sapien at least, had arrived by then. Modern H. sapien a bit later, but still.

Then, while checking all this out, I read that some of the pseudo-science and cryptozoologists folks posit that Yetis and Sasquatches are really Gigantopithecuses that had evolved quietly on the unseen margins of our world.

They maintain that Gigantopithecus could have made the same land bridge trek over the Bering Sea, and settled in the Pacific Northwest, same as us. Their predecessors would have simply stayed in Tibet...? I guess?

Serious scientists today generally roll their eyes at this line of thought. It would have been pretty difficult for them to have left no fossil evidence from the time they otherwise disappear from the fossil record until, er, today?

Another science issue is that with the size and ambulatory nature meant Gigantopithecus---using knuckles---was essentially a quadruped and would most likely not have evolved bipedalism.

It was around here that I started learning about all sorts of our "in-between" ancestors, the branches of the bush between us and today's Pan (chimps, bonobos) and Pongo (gorillas, orangutans): Sivapithecus, Khoratpithecus, Ankarapithecus, et al...

I even found the following graphic I used to help explain that "in-between" status to Cass:

The middle two above, if you're like I ain't readin' that, are a male and female Australopithecus afarensis. They still showed signs of serious sexual dimorphism (older ape trait), but stood upright and had less splayed toes (more human-ape traits).

I thought it would be cool to think about how some sort of -pithecus may have evolved into Yetis and Sasquatches, but it's probably not meant to be.

Also, did your morning start with conversations about sexual dimorphism? I'm sure they might have!

I grew up loving Harry and the Hendersons. And I'm excited for this summer's Sasquatch Sunset movie.

Also also, I was trying to come up with a cool -pithecus name, and I'm not sure Californipithecus counts, but I like it nonetheless.