Taiwan leg bones point to Denisovans around 1.8-1.9 m tall

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Key facts

• In 2008 commercial fishermen dredged a massive mandible from the Penghu Channel off Taiwan; it was kept at the National Museum of Natural Science in Taiwan and identified as archaic human seven years later as 'Penghu 1'.
• Penghu 1 was later confirmed as Denisovan; during the Ice Age lowered sea levels turned the Taiwan Strait into dry land crossed by people and animals.
• A femur ('Penghu 2') and a tibia ('Penghu 3') recovered from a dredging haul sat for years in a large private fossil collection before researchers identified them in 2010.
• In 2026 researchers re-examined these bones and reported they too are Denisovan; the finding was still a preprint at the time.
• Penghu 2's femur reconstructs to roughly 49 cm, indicating a body height of about 1.8 m and weight near 83 kg (183 lb).
• Penghu 3's tibia preserves a 34 cm shaft with an estimated complete length near 43 cm, indicating a height of about 1.9 m and weight near 91 kg (200 lb).
• One of the two leg bones shows a healed fracture, indicating its owner survived a serious injury.
• The video stresses these two individuals may be unusually large members of a local population rather than typical of all Denisovans, since Siberian fossils preserve too little of the body to estimate general Denisovan height.

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