New Scientist
Image: Gerg1967
Hollywood loves a gigantic ape. It gave the world King Kong and in Disney’s remake of The Jungle Book, it has given King Louie an upgrade. A big one. Formerly an average-sized orangutan, his lumbering body now fills an abandoned temple deep in the Indian jungle. In his introductory scene, he chucks a handful of juicy papayas at Mowgli’s feet. The fruit seem like dice in his enormous hairy fist.
You’d be forgiven for thinking the producers have taken liberties, and it’s true there is a bit of artistic licence in there. But Louie 2.0 is more rooted in reality than you might think. Once upon a time, Asia’s tropical forests were indeed home to an unusually large ape.
King Louie’s swinging tune I Wan’na Be Like You made him one of the best-loved characters in the 1967 animation. For the 2016 version, the producers encountered a problem: 1967 Louie was an orangutan and orangutans don’t live in India.
A bit of digging provided a solution. Over the millennia, several apes have lived in India, including one with a catchy name and a big reputation: Gigantopithecus. Said to have stood up to 3.5 metres tall, it is the biggest ape ever to have walked the Earth. Read more on newscientist.com…
