Even today’s giants — towering giraffes and massive elephants — are tiny compared to the prehistoric titans that once dominated the planet. Long before humans showed up, Earth was home to creatures so ...

Towering over ten feet tall and weighing more than half a ton, Gigantopithecus was the largest ape to ever walk the earth—a gentle giant that mysteriously disappeared.

By far the largest ever found of its kind, the spiny fossil predator "would have made enough scampi to feed an army," one expert quipped.