Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam Here. If you're considering a summer vacation to a fictitious land, then Skull Island is an eco tourism dream come true. There you can avoid the genetic mischief of Jurassic Park's Island, Newbar and the radioactive horror of Monster Island, but still visit a place where prehistoric
creatures thrive in the wild. Skull Island, sometimes called Kong's Island, is home to a perplexing array of organisms, as captured in the nineteen thirty three film King Kong and its sequels and remakes. It houses everything from native populations of Homo sapiens to dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus and Stegosaurus, and then there's the ape lord himself, King Kong. Unlike the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and plesiosaurs upon the island, Kong doesn't quite line up
with any known prehistoric beast. Even Gigantipithecus, the largest known primate of all time, stood no more than ten ft tall that's about three meters. Kong, however, stands at least eighteen feet or five and a half meters tall In the nineteen thirty three film, and it's even taller in some tellings. Sizing up like this can prove something of a risky move. Evolutionarily speaking, bigger bodies come with increased energy demands and body changes to keep everything from falling apart.
Noted zoologist R McNeil Alexander once explained that King Kong would collapse under his own weight could be a hundred and twenty five times the volume of a real ape loaded with a hundred and twenty five times the weight, but on the physical frame of a typical gorilla, his legs simply wouldn't be able to support him. Essentially, you can't just scale up a creature's size and expect it
to function the same way. Plus, an ape like cong might be big enough to defeat all its fellow beasts in a brawl, but couldn't cope with climate change, habitat loss, or the destructive tendencies of human civilization. And if he soundhow could support his own weight. Being big isn't enough to cope with these other dangers. Prehistoric titans like Gigantipithecus and the giant sloths present a valuable lesson in the
vulnerability of life as giant land mammals. National Geographic once pointed out that, based on computer modeling of heights, every species has an effective upper limit of size, and the closer they evolved towards that size, the greater the risk of extinction. Perhaps that's why King Kong is typically described as the last of his kind. Even Skull Island seems incapable of supporting a robust population of rampaging giant apes.
Not only would he be considered an endangered species, he's also what's often referred to as functionally extinct, because, let's face it, Kong's species is at a dead end. Despite an alleged son of Kong popping up from time to time, the population of his species has clearly dipped well below the threshold for genetically stable reproduction. In other words, if there are female Hongs out there, the resulting offspring would be subject to the sort of lack of genetic diversity
that leads to genetic disorders and eventually extinction. And Kong's not alone. Several real life species exist in this state of impending doom, including the bay a g a freshwater dolphin once found in the Yanksee River. We've even seen A recent example of a last known member of a species succumbing to extinction George, the last Hawaiian tree snail, who died in captivity on January one. George was no giant, but his death highlights one of the lesser known plights
of extinction, that of snails and slugs. Amphibians face a similar crisis, and in both cases there are inevitable ripple effects throughout the ecosystem. While King Kong seems to exist in order to battle other giant creatures, these smaller victims of extinction play subtler but still vital ecological roles, such as decomposing waste or keeping mosquito populations in check. When we lose them, we risk greater threats. So certainly poor
one out for lonely King Kong. But on the bright side, it doesn't look like he'll vanish from the world of cinema anytime soon. Instead, it consider the many critically endangered species of the real world and what you can do to help them. Today's episode was written by Robert Lamb and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radios. Hastuff works for more in this and lots of other gigantic topics, visit our home planet, how stuff
works dot com. And for more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,