2025 has arrived.

This is a big wide world. There were so many events in 2024 and numerous words to describe them.

Let’s discuss my choice for the year 2024.

Once upon a time ‘Giant Ape’, considered as the largest primate, inhabited the earth. Later, this ape disappeared whereas a relative of this primate continued to survive. It was only in the first half of the 20th century that some sort of evidence of their existence was found. Since then, various studies were conducted.

The aforementioned primate is known with the genus name ‘Gigantopithecus’, species name ‘G. blacki’, and binomial name ‘Gigantopithecus blacki’. This primate belonged to the subfamily ‘Ponginae’ and family ‘Hominidae’. This Giant Ape existed from around 2 million years ago to until the extinction window of around 2,95,000 and 2,15,000 years.

Now coming back to the recent times, 21 curious researchers conducted a study for several years by identifying locations and collecting required evidence. Then they applied various techniques and tools to get into the reason for the extinction of this primate. The findings were then published in the Nature Portfolio online titled ‘The demise of the giant ape Gigantopithecus blacki in January 2024 and was reported widely.

The study identified that there was environmental variability during the transition phase before the extinction window, which included changes in arboreal cover and increase in open grasslands amongst others. Yet the main reason for decline was the change in the composition of forest communities. The vast size of the primate was a hindrance in climbing trees or moving to different locations. As a result, there was a shift in the eating habits yet it was a struggle compared to another close relative of this primate, which perhaps adapted well to the environmental variations.

While we can always expect some new information, this was one of the greatest mysteries that was solved for now.

From various perspectives, inference can be habitat loss, environmental variability, transition phase, inadaptability, heterodonty, that is, the teeth that may have impacted the eating habits. In my opinion, the extinction window is important because further studies in future may identify more cohabitants during the age, whether there was any encounter with the homo sapiens, help identify possible extinction windows of available species, ways to safeguard them, threat to human life on earth, and corrective measures to stop further damage to the earth as well as various biotic and abiotic factors.

Hence, my choice for 2024 is ‘Extinction Window’.

Best wishes for 2025.