Gigantopithecus

The natives have even spoke about him and everything.

Um, I think, you know, and, and if you do more research, it seems like everybody, every co- country has their version of the Gigantopithecus.

And, um, America, you know, they, they say, "Oh, well, no, we don't have that.

We don't have that." But for every country to have a version of it, I would think that, you know, America would have one, and I think that would be Bigfoot because...

The most popular cryptozoological theory is that the yaoi is an unknown primate or ancient human relative.

Gigantopithecus is frequently summoned into these discussions.

It was a real genus of enormous ape known from fossils found in Asia.

We know it existed largely from teeth and jaw fragments, which is enough material for the internet to seemingly confidently reconstruct its height, social structure, political opinions, and maybe interest in knocking on trees.

There's no evidence at the moment that Gigantopithecus reached Australia.

A relict human species faces similar problems.

Humans reached Sahul deep in prehistory.

I believe the DNA is 100% fact.

And what I tell conferences is that on the ape and gorilla side of the fence, you have people who believe it's Gigantopithecus or Paranthropus, an ape or gorilla.

We have that DNA.

If anywhere in North America, we found hair, we found bones, we found tissue or blood, that somebody thought was Bigfoot and it was Gigantopithecus or Paranthropus, the DNA would show it.

We've never had DNA showing that in North America.

We just have this unknown, unclassified, strange result repeatedly happening.

The vast rugged terrain of the Mogollon Rim, with its countless caves and canyons, also makes it an ideal landscape for legends of hidden creatures to flourish, providing ample cover for any animal or hermit wishing to remain unseen.

Whether a misidentified bear, a surviving Gigantopithecus, or a phantom of the wilderness, the Mogollon Monster remains a potent symbol of the untamed American Southwest.

For those who venture into the deep forests along the rim, the legend serves as a stark reminder that the wilderness keeps its own secrets, some of which may be large, hairy, and very hostile.

Now, in the murky swamplands and moss-draped cypress groves of southern Arkansas lurks one of America's most famous regional cryptids, the Fouke Monster.

And most importantly, the suggestion that it wasn't merely an unusually large man, but the surviving remnant of an ancient race of giants that was never completely wiped from the earth.

But where did all of this begin? Where did the story of the Kandahar giant actually come from? Are these giants just members of an unknown human population hidden deep within Afghanistan's mountains? Could they be descendants of some undiscovered giant primate, or distantly related to the extinct Gigantopithecus? Or is the Kandahar Giant simply a modern legend assembled from much older stories? This is the mythology of the Kandahar Giant.

The legend resurfaced on June 2026 when armwrestling icon and former Canadian soldier Devon Larratt appeared on episode 2510 of the Joe Rogan Experience.

Before his armwrestling career, Larratt served in the Canadian Armed Forces, including with Joint Task Force 2, Canada's elite special operations units.

This thing is not a gorilla.

It's not Gigantopithecus.

I believe it's part of our human DNA,

especially how human it looks.

No, I'm not

saying that I thought I'd caught a glimpse of Gigantopithecus or anything.

I know the stories are mostly exactly that, just stories, but a part of me just wanted to be sure.

So like I said, I turned the car 90 degrees, turned on the high beams and stepped out of the driver's side and onto the highway.

Sightings have been reported for well over a century, uh, at least in the remote mountain for- uh, rainforest of Sumatra.

And Heuvelmans really loved the sensationalized story of the Yeti, arguing against the term Abominable Snowman in favor of a real shy species of specialized giant ape, potentially related to the extinct, uh, Gigantopithecus that lived in Sou- uh, Southern China from about 2 million to 215,000 years ago.

And that thing, known as the largest primate ever to exist, it stood nearly 10 feet tall, weighed between 440 and 660 pounds, would fucking dominate in the NBA.

Uh, Heuvelmans, uh, obsessed most of all with these, uh, human...

Uh, they look like, uh, kinda like a missing link between apes and humans.

Pretty fascinating.

And in Asia, the previously mentioned, uh, giga- Gigantopithecus, a massive 10-foot-tall ape even, uh, coexisted with early humans a couple hundred thousand years ago.

Uh, but there's another reason that Bigfoot-like creatures take up so much of the cryptid landscape, and it's the one that's, uh, the most important to our topic today.