Kira Westaway

Extinction vs Adaption - Finalist, 2024 Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary research - so proud of our team - the threat of extinction affects all of us so good to see palaeo being recognised!! youtu.be/Q1GavnwN8TY?si… via @YouTube

Fabulous talk by @lumilicious Kira Westaway tonight at the annual Ruth and Vincent Megaw Lecture in #Archaeology. A/Prof Westaway spoke about timing and drivers for hominin species in Southeast Asia. Thanks @dr_marpol and @FLINArchaeology - nice to visit the spiffy new campus!

A/Prof Kira Westaway is our honoured speaker this evening for the annual Ruth and Vincent Megaw lecture at @flinders in the city. Tonight her public lecture is entitled ‘Primate extinction: Exploring the timing and drivers.’

Such a pleasure to be sampling at the beautiful Callao Cave in north Luzon Philippines- a massive thank you to Mandy and his hard working Callao team for a great experience!

We used some techniques discussed in our piece below to contextualise Gigantopithecus teeth for our recent @Nature paper. Microanalytical techniques provide nuanced environmental data stored in cave and rockshelter sediments Please read the paper here: rdcu.be/dzULd

Giant 'kings of apes' once roamed Southern China, standing 3m tall and weighing around 250 kg. Southern Cross geoarchaeology experts @PalaeoGARG join a team of international researchers to solve the mystery of their extinction. bit.ly/3ObTe9e @archgeobails

Official copy! My #PhD, as part of the #GigantoProject, on the cover 🦧Besides the bulk of my results the article also includes some of my art...though not as beautiful as the reconstruction by #GarciaPaleoart Thanks @nature @lumilicious @PalaeoGARG @FlindersPalaeo @SuSaMiGroup

Dating dirt unearths the truth about why the world's biggest ape disappeared: macq.it/3vD1Xe5 #MacquarieUniversity | @lumilicious

@NexusOfAll97 @Macquarie_Uni @MQSciEng No this the mandible described in Zhang et al., 2016 - but always nice to see!

My contribution to #FossilFriday the 4th Gigantopithecus blacki mandible ever found in Yanliang Cave in southern China - held by Zhang Yingqi at the IVPP in Beijing - what magnificent teeth! @Macquarie_Uni @MQSciEng

Just in case you missed it - my foray into science short documentaries - The Rise and Fall of a Vulnerable Giant - including all footage, models, interviews and editing - I love explaining science in this medium - stand aside Michael Moore!! @MQSciEng youtu.be/QRzWb31Qohc

@lumilicious @archaeobails @MQSciEng Pleasure was mine. Looking forwards to the next scientific adventure

@MDPetraglia Not yet @MDPetraglia - four sections of mandibles and a few thousand teeth - but we are working on it!!

@lumilicious @Macquarie_Uni @MQSciEng Kira I see that we have teeth and a mandible here. Do we have any other cranial or postcranial evidence for Gigantopithecus yet? Serious question.

The extinction of the largest known primate, a giant ape from China, resulted from its struggle to adapt to environmental changes, according to a study in @Nature. go.nature.com/3RTaIbx

It's been a beautiful day for paleontology. Besides the paper about a new Tyrannosaurs species (T. Mcraeensis), there is new information about the extinction of Gigantopithecus 👇🏻🦧

Gigantopithecus: a gigantic orang that persisted from 2 million years mysteriously becoming extinct between 295,000 to 215,000. The regular orangs some how made it through: nature.com/articles/s4158…

@muchtoocommon @NBCNews If you want to know what something is eating, teeth are really useful. But no, they did more. They were also able to determine what the overall ecosystem was, and how it changed over time, and what their cousins were eating. I sat down and read the paper. nature.com/articles/s4158…

Paper da copertina, proprio, gratis. nature.com/articles/s4158… Per 2 milioni/anni il Gigantopithecus blacki era vissuto tra foresta e prateria, mangiando frutta. Poi 295 mila anni fa sono cambiati clima e vegetazione, gli oranghi si sono adattati al nuovo ambiente e lui no.

Stunning cover in @Nature featuring a fascinating detective fossil research that sheds light on the reasons why the earth's largest ever primate went extinct 2.6 million years ago. Zhang, Westaway et al. Nature nature.com/articles/s4158…

How history's largest ape met his end - a great chat on Quirks and Quarks CBC Canadian radio @MQSciEng cbc.ca/radio/quirks/q…

Pollen analysis played a crucial role in understanding the changing environments that caused such a problem for Gigantopithecus blacki in southern China - massive thanks to @thatpollenguy pictured here sitting outside one of the youngest G. blacki caves - Shuangtan @MQSciEng