Episode 23: King Kong (2005)

This week we’re taking a look at King Kong (2005), Peter Jackson’s epic three-hour remake of the 1933 classic. We talk about the biology and evolution of island ecosystems, but we should have had a physicist guest host this episode because this movie can’t seem to help breaking the laws of physics!

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In this episode:

• Apes are monkeys – deal with it

• Monkeys travelled to South America by raft

• Insular Dwarfism – the “Island Rule”

• Human “hobbit” species, Homo floresiensis and Homo luzonensis

• The North American House Hippo

• Gigantopithecus, the largest ape that ever lived

• How big can mammals get?

• King Kong defies physics

• The Square-Cube Law

• American missionary killed by indigenous people of the Andaman Islands

• Giant Wētā, the largest living insect

• Why aren’t there giant insects today?