This is the best news I’ve heard all week:

A gigantic ape standing 10 feet tall and weighing up to 1,200 pounds lived alongside humans for over a million years, according to a new study.

Information on the giant ape however is extremely scant:

“A missing piece of the puzzle has always focused on pin-pointing when Gigantopithecus existed,” Rink said. “This is a primate that co-existed with humans at a time when humans were undergoing a major evolutionary change. Guangxhi province in southern China, where some of the Gigantopithecus fossils were found, is the same region where some believe the modern human race originated.”

Since the original discovery, scientists have been able to piece together a description of Gigantopithecus using just a handful of teeth and a set of jawbones. It may not be much, but the unusually large size of these teeth indicates they belonged to one big ape.

“The size of these specimens – the crown of the molar, for instance, measures about an inch across – helped us understand the extraordinary size of the primate,” Rink said.

Try Google for some possible representations of how this beastie might have looked. Aside from the obvious (and perhaps worthwhile) Bigfoot comparisons, this might be another fun opportunity for people to delve into some of the lore about giants co-existing with early man. Here’s one page about them in the Americas. And as Genesis 6:4 tells us, “There were giants in the earth in those days…” These are the infamous Nephilim who interbred with the daughters of man. (Here’s an orthodox Christian site trying to downplay the popular Nephilim = space aliens meme).