If someone asked what you thought Bigfoot looked like, what would you say?

You'd probably think of a very large and hairy gorilla-like creature that walks like a human. Well, about one hundred thousand years ago, there was an animal that fit the description almost perfectly; that creature was called Gigantopithecus.

Scientists first learned of Gigantopithecus in 1935, when Ralph von Koenigswald, a German paleoanthropologist, walked into a pharmacy in Hong Kong and found an unusually large primate molar for sale. finding more fossils have become very difficult because bones, called Dragon teeth, are used in holistic medicine throughout China, Vietnam, and India where Gigantopithecus once roamed.

Based on the fossils found, it appears Gigantopithecus was closely related to modern orangutans. based on evidence found from fossils; Gigantopithecus' diet was based on fruit and plants, and with the size of these creatures, varying on species, Gigantopithecus could be around six to nine feet tall and weigh up to one thousand pounds.

Gigantopithecus' story shows why size can give terrible outcomes. “There are short-term advantages that come with being bigger, but it also brings long-term risk,” says Aaron Clauset, a computer scientist at the University of Boulder, who has studied the body sizes of thousands of species spanning two million years of the fossil record, So there are a number of things that could have happened.

Many speculate that a climate shift was what killed of Gigantopithecus. The species needed a large food source, and if that source began to change with the climate, it would make sense that the species had trouble surviving.

Even though Gigantopithecus has allegedly been extinct for over one hundred thousand years, scientist have found species alive that were once presumedly extinct. So, who's to say that Gigantopithecus couldn't be walking around today. So think about that before you write off the famous Bigfoot video as fake, maybe it's Gigantopithecus making a comeback!