THE largest ape to walk the Earth — a prehistoric primate that weighed up to 85 stone (540kg) and had inch-wide teeth — may have lived alongside early humans, according to scientists.

Fossils from the 10ft tall ape Gigantopithecus blackii, which were found in southern China, have been dated to the same era when humans are thought to have inhabited the area.

Jack Rink, a Canadian paleontologist, said that samples of the primate’s lower jaw suggested that it was alive as recently as 100,000 years ago.

Professor Rink, associate professor of geography and earth sciences at McMaster University in Ontario, discovered that teeth from the giant ape — one of only a handful of Gigantopithecus artefacts known to science — came from a relatively recent and pivotal era for Homo erectus, a human ancestor.

“A missing piece of the puzzle has always focused on pinpointing when Gigantopithecus existed,” he said. “This is a primate that co-existed with humans at a time when humans were undergoing a major evolutionary change.”

Professor Rink said that Guangxi province in southern China, where the Gigantopithecus fossils were found, was the same region where some believe the modern human race originated.

“No one had suspected it was this young,” he said. “We have been able to show that the creature lived in China in the same time period that humans were spending time in that part of the world,” he said. “Originally the ape was thought to have been on the ancestral human line, but that has been shown to be not true.

“Probably the creatures lived up in the caves and up in the bamboo forests, while people were living lower in the river valleys. But it’s quite likely that humans came face to face with the ape.”

Scientists have been debating the demise of Gigantopithecus, nicknamed Giganto, since 1935, when a Dutch paleontologist discovered the first huge, human-like molar at a Hong Kong market that was selling bones for traditional Chinese medicines.

Professor Rink’s analysis, achieved by exposing bone samples to a high-tech radiation process, follows years of work at a Chinese cave known to have the richest deposits of Giganto remains. The work was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. Only four sets of the ape’s lower jaw have been found to date, in China, India and Vietnam.

From the fossils, scientists have been able to extrapolate the overall physiology and stature of the gargantuan ape, which was up to one third taller and seven times heavier than the average modern man.

Giganto remains are so rare that authorities have never allowed direct dating techniques to be carried out on them, for fear that the process could destroy bone samples.

But by analysing the teeth of other mammal species found in the same layers of soil as the giant ape, including Stegodon, an elephant ancestor, Professor Rink was able to determine that the primate was still living 100,000 years ago.

Giganto roamed southeast Asia for nearly a million years during the Pleistocene period. They are believed to have had massive appetites, but were herbivores, eating mainly bamboo.

Professor Rink said it was not known why the giant apes eventually became extinct.

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