Bigfoot Dna

[Guest]

Considering that chimps are somewhere around 98% identicle to humans geneticly, It is certainly logical to presume that sasquatch DNA would be even closer. I expect that sasquatches are in the genus Homo but would be classified as a new hominid. Hell, there has even been some scientists pushing to re-classify chimps within the genus Homo based on their DNA.

I don't think Ketchum is influenced by Paulides' beliefs at all, she will stick to the facts presented by the physical evidence and what the DNA says it is, and I don't think she would publish something that wasn't distinctly unique. If that is still within the realm of human then maybe we will re-define what "human" really means.

For the sake of brevity, the chimp's DNA functions differently than ours does, as does any animals DNA, and when you line up the human and chimp genome beside each other only about 70-75% of it matches exactly. So it is kind of misleading when people say chimps and humans share 98.5% of their genes and the reason that the 1.5% makes such a difference.

And this is for anyone, why is bipedalism an indication that something might be genetically closer to us than a chmip? I make the same assumption too but I never thought about why I think that......

[Guest vilnoori]

Parnassus, no, I'm not a specialist in this area (just a general biologist and not a working one) but I read some of the papers that get out there. My actual first choice would be the Max Planck Institute, but do you think they would take a sample from North America seriously? How about the San Diego Zoo lab? I realize its not an exact fit, and you're right, there, it would be hard to figure out how to ask for the right kind of test for a lay person. Maybe that is part of the problem. But you do have to admit that Todd Disotell has a bias. So does Meldrum, for that matter. Personally I think that is jumping the gun, considering that IF this creature exists, we know so little about it.

I think the footprint morphology points to variations based on an increase on size. You may notice that large people, and very overweight people lose their arch. If you multiplied that effect, might you not get something like the footprints we see? I have seen small footprints with an arch (which I think are juvenile) next to a very large, flat, almost unrealistically so, footprint which I think is the mother. I'm not sure, as I haven't had a class A sighting but only the footprints and that is what many researchers report. There are also slight modifications to the foot which allow them to go almost straight uphill in our kind of terrain over here, in areas in which humans would have to zigzag. Are you telling me that foot morphology couldn't show some slight adaptations over the amount of time we could be talking about? I don't think we even have a foot morphology for H erectus, just H. sapiens, Neanderthals, Ardipithecus, H. floresiensis, H. antecessor and H. ergaster. The Laetoli footprints are either of Australopithecines or H. habilis, right? And they show a greater toe divergence. Even the neanderthal footprint is quite different than modern humans, being fat and short, with very spread, "pea-like" toes.

As for tool use in erectus, presumably a North American erectus lineage would come from parts of Asia where there is a dearth of evidence of tool use at erectus sites. People have postulated that the tools are missing because they used bamboo instead, but, well, maybe the cultural knowledge was simply lost. And if they got bigger and stronger, and had corresponding adaptations to cold and montane conditions maybe they survived without needing them.

Edited October 14, 2010 by vilnoori

[BobZenor]

Bipedalism requires a great deal of evolutionary changes including changes in the inner ears and logically the brain for balance, curvature of the back and neck, pelvis, arms, legs, feet... It is far more involved than simply growing larger which is apparently the primary logic that supports "apes" as ancestors over hominins. The last I heard, chimps are something like 95 percent the same even if you include the very large insertions and deletions that weren't visible before because they didn't sequence very large segments until fairly recently so they didn't see very large transpositions.

I used this link for most of the numbers and the quote.

The comparisons where you get 70 to 75 percent similarity are just comparisons where the chromosomes are lined up. Many chromosomes have large sections that were transposed so the order of the genes was changed. Since the genes still exist, it is also misleading to say that they are 70 percent the same. When they examine them on a very small scale, they get the ~98% the same. The sequences on the genes themselves vary by that much. On a larger scale that includes very large insertions, you get something like 95 percent the same. When you look at the whole chromosomes, you get something like 70 percent the same where they are close enough and the genes are in the right order that they can combine which is something like 1.23% the same.

Personally, I think the nuclear DNA is far too complex to use as the primary tool to compare closely related animals. It can obviously be done but it is much more simple to simply compare the sequence of the hypervariable region of the mitochondria. We are 91 percent similar to chimps on that section of DNA and we vary among ourselves by 0.57% which represents 140,000 to 290,000 years assuming 2%-4% per million years. 4 percent change means that our common ancestor with chimps is after Lucy so I would definitely think the lower end of that range is much more credible.

If we have nuclear DNA it would be invaluable to back up whatever you got from sequencing the D-loop of the mitochondria. All the other tests involving proteins and markers from nuclear DNA are just to complex to logically make comparisons. It just won't carry the same weight because of the way that nuclear DNA recombines. The sequences from the mitochondria are sufficiently reliable to use as the screen. It would be nice to do the protein and other types of tests on the nuclear genome after the screening of the mitochondrial DNA. It would have to be very close to a modern human to not show up on that test unless there was a recent hybrid and that seems unlikely primarily for the reason that Saskeptic mentions. If they were that close, they should have logically been absorbed by interbreeding with modern humans. There wouldn't be reproductive isolation. I don't see how they could have lasted for the 13,000 years that modern humans were in America if that were true. It also just seem highly unlikely considering how different they appear...

I think the logical thing to do would be to focus on the MtDNA and possibly the hair morphology first. I hope that is what is being done otherwise this is going to be difficult to sort out.

I never heard this before and thought it was interesting. The whole wiki article was interesting.

Hair keratin gene KRTHAP1

A gene for type I hair keratin was lost in the human lineage. Keratins are a major component of hairs. Humans still have nine functional type I hair keratin genes but the loss of that particular gene may have caused the thinning of human body hair. The gene loss occurred relatively recently in human evolution—less than 240' date='000 years ago.[14']

Edited October 14, 2010 by BobZenor

[Guest ajciani]

First, I don't think that Ketchum or Paulides have indicated anything concerning their preliminary findings, certainly not that BF are a divergent human population.

As for the species identification testing, this was once done by using markers to attach luminescent chemicals to specific sequences of DNA. If it glows, the sequence exists. One of the common sequences used was for alpha hemoglobin. For example, between gorilla and human, there is a single base pair (bp) difference out of 861 bp (99.88% identical). So a BF might have 100% identical hemoglobin, and test as human.

Nuclear DNA mutates slowly. In fact, our individual genes ARE about 98% identical to other apes. Most of human differentiation is the result of some deactivation mutations, and a bunch of copy mutations (the number of functional copies of the same gene). For example, nearly all of the brain genes between humans and chimpanzees are identical, it is just that humans have multiple copies of some of the key genes.

Modern species identification is performed by sequencing short segments of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), particularly the oxidase enzyme genes, such a cytochrome c-oxidase I (COX1, which is used almost exclusively in species bar coding). This gene is generally 1000's of bp long (human is 1543 bp). The mtDNA mutates rather rapidly, about 1 mutation per base pair per 500 million years (2×10^-9 bases per year). So given a 1543 bp mitochondrial gene, it would take about 320,000 yr (average) for a single mutation to occur. So if BF is something like a homo erectus, then there might be two or three differences in that COX1 gene. There would be even more differences throughout the other mitochondrial genes.

Now, if BF diverged from humans only 20,000 years ago, then we have problems. Considering that the human population is about 200,000 years old, then there would only be 1/10th the difference between BF and human as between human and human. BF would have to be a human sub species, and that really just isn't possible, as Sas noted.

There was a point, probably some 2.4 million years ago, at which the human line split, the apparent choice being brains or brawn. Or perhaps, brains due to a lack of brawn. There was a mutation (in gene MYH16) which weakened human jaw muscle fibers, thankfully, at a time when human ancestors were just smart enough to compensate for it, or perhaps had already "compensated", enabling the mutation. The mutation may have been a two-for-one. Weak jaw muscles necessitated more intelligent food gathering, while simultaneously allowing the brain case to expand. It is also this mutation which likely eliminated our sagittal crest, which forms in response to the maxillary muscles (some humans still have a sagittal keel, e.g. Patrick Stewart). So if BF split from humans recently, it may have been about that time, 2.4 mya.

BTW, something to note about human vs ape strength: ape muscles tend to have longer fibers and are attached further from the fulcrum, meaning they must contract a greater length to move the limb through the same angle. Their muscles essentially operate in "low gear". The result is that they are about twice as strong pound-for-pound, but lack endurance. That BF are about 4 times the mass, they should probably be able to move 400 lb objects with ease, if they have the lower-ape muscle and bone structure. Bigfoots are reported to move 400 lb objects, so they probably have the lower-ape musculoskeletal system. If that is the case, they likely split more than 3 mya. So ape skeletal system, and bipedal locomotion would place them as divergent hominids, about 3.5 to 3.0 mya, plenty of time to develop increased size, unique hair patterns, and nocturnal adaptations.

Edited October 14, 2010 by ajciani

[Drew]

Are you saying that if the split happened 3.5 to 3.0 mya, that would have put the split in Africa, then they migrated north through Siberia, and to America? At what point would the Gigantism have developed? I would think the large size would be for hunting the large creatures which lived on or near the Ice line. Do you think they would have developed alongside humans? or would they have required isolation from the human population to prevent being engulfed by the wave of humans?

[Guest parnassus]

Yes and no. There's a lot of apparent morphological divergence* between any of us and "Patty." By and large such differences would place us in different species, perhaps different genera. But I'm sure those more genetically inclined than myself could provide examples of tremendous morphological divergence within a species too, so it doesn't follow that the H.s.s. hypothesis is necessarily flawed from the get-go.

That said, if something like Patty was the same species as you and I , we would still expect it to be quite distinct genetically. Just because it's not different enough to be another species does not mean that it's not distinct enough to pop out as something unique in analysis.

*Of course, "Patty" isn't really that different from us. We know, for example, that her limb proportions, height, etc. fall into a normal human range. She looks hairy, she has big feet, and an oddly shaped head. Other than that how different is she really?

Answering your latter question depends on who you talk to and when. All of the scientists who have published on the PGF and the tracks/casts say that this not a human. Am I wrong? Most proponents do not agree that their proportions are those of humans. If they are correct, bigfoots are at least a different genus. You say an oddly shaped head, but proponents have held, for example, that Napier's charge that the PGF subject walks like a man is only true because bigfoot women don't bear children with human sized heads, ie their brains are smaller. I gather from what you wrote that you reject the idea that bigfoot's lack of even the most primitive "technology" is due to some conscious choice to live in harmony with nature, rather it is a limitation, "not a feature". A sagittal crest definitely puts you in a whole different genus, and a small brain puts you in a different species, at least. The feet and manner of locomotion, according to Meldrum, puts you in a different genus.

Projection:

Now having said all that, "Other than that how different is she really?" is exactly what I expect to hear from Ketchum and Paulides. And I expect this will take hold with most of the bigfoot community. Why? because it means there is no longer a need for a body. Bigfoot is a human with a few odd little polymorphisms. All the human hair and feces and other specimens that have been analyzed and found to be "just human" are now "proof of bigfoot."

Meldrum will sputter and Krantz will roll over in his grave. Too bad....under the bus with all their work. The scientific community will show why the Ketchum/Paulides model isn't true, a few proponents will jump off the careening van, but in the main the bigfoot community will reject the "closed minded skoftics" in favor of the vet from Texas and Paulides brilliant marketing tactic. "The dogs may bark; the caravan goes on." Bigfoot lives!!

Edited October 14, 2010 by parnassus

[Guest]

Bigfoot lives!!

An astute prediction to be sure!

[Guest ajciani]

Something complicating this discussion is that the phylogeny of humans, beyond about 2.0 to 2.5 mya is really one big guess. The current view is that bipedalism was introduced about 3.5 mya with Australopithecus. Australopithecus then saw a mutation about 2.7 mya which spawned Paranthropus (robust austalopithecines) and another mutation 2.4 mya which spawned Homo.

New fossil finds suggest that bipedalism is much older than 3.5 mya, possibly 6.0 to 7.0 mya. Both of these finds, Orrorin tugenensis and Sahelanthropus tchadensis, even suggest that Australopithecus was NOT a human ancestor, and that the real human ancestor for the period between 6 mya to 2.4 mya may be as yet unknown.

It is also quite possible that bipedalism developed independently in multiple phylogenies. Another question which remains unanswered is when humans developed permanent pendulous breasts. There are plenty of things which indicate bigfoots came from the human lineage, but we won't know exactly when until we get a hold of some really good DNA samples, study their physiology, and most importantly, identify the proper human lineage.

If bigfoots are from the australopithecus line, then they pretty much had to split between 3.5 mya (start of line) and 2.4 mya (start of homo). They could be a continuation of Paranthropus, which started to develop robust features. Continue the robust development, add in some Pleistocene gigantism, and you end up with a Paranthropus giganteus.

They could be from the Gigantopithecus line, which appeared roughly 6 to 9 mya in India, spread to China, and became gigantic during the Pleistocene. It is possible that Gigantopithecus originated from Sahelanthropus, as their jaws share similar features. It is also possible that it went the other way around, Gigantopithecus entering Africa from India and then spawning Sahelanthropus.

And then there's Meganthropus (1.5 to 0.8 mya), which shares some cranial and dental features with Homo and Sahelanthropus. Meganthropus is found in southeast Asia (Indonesia), and is generally considered to be a Homo species, possibly H. erectus. Meganthropus possibly experienced some gigantism, pushing it toward bigfoot size. While the fossils have been lumped into the Homo box by many, the classification has been anything but definitive. They are fossils with more questions than answers.

[Guest parnassus]

Parnassus, no, I'm not a specialist in this area (just a general biologist and not a working one) but I read some of the papers that get out there. My actual first choice would be the Max Planck Institute, but do you think they would take a sample from North America seriously? How about the San Diego Zoo lab? I realize its not an exact fit, and you're right, there, it would be hard to figure out how to ask for the right kind of test for a lay person. Maybe that is part of the problem. But you do have to admit that Todd Disotell has a bias. So does Meldrum, for that matter. Personally I think that is jumping the gun, considering that IF this creature exists, we know so little about it.

I think the footprint morphology points to variations based on an increase on size. You may notice that large people, and very overweight people lose their arch. If you multiplied that effect, might you not get something like the footprints we see? I have seen small footprints with an arch (which I think are juvenile) next to a very large, flat, almost unrealistically so, footprint which I think is the mother. I'm not sure, as I haven't had a class A sighting but only the footprints and that is what many researchers report. There are also slight modifications to the foot which allow them to go almost straight uphill in our kind of terrain over here, in areas in which humans would have to zigzag. Are you telling me that foot morphology couldn't show some slight adaptations over the amount of time we could be talking about? I don't think we even have a foot morphology for H erectus, just H. sapiens, Neanderthals, Ardipithecus, H. floresiensis, H. antecessor and H. ergaster. The Laetoli footprints are either of Australopithecines or H. habilis, right? And they show a greater toe divergence. Even the neanderthal footprint is quite different than modern humans, being fat and short, with very spread, "pea-like" toes.

As for tool use in erectus, presumably a North American erectus lineage would come from parts of Asia where there is a dearth of evidence of tool use at erectus sites. People have postulated that the tools are missing because they used bamboo instead, but, well, maybe the cultural knowledge was simply lost. And if they got bigger and stronger, and had corresponding adaptations to cold and montane conditions maybe they survived without needing them.

what would be a greater coup for Todd Disotell than identifying bigfoot DNA? why would he not want to do it? do you have a reason to think that the scientists at the Max Planck Institute or the San Diego Zoo are not biased in the same way that Disotell is?

As far as arch is concerned, I think you are confusing the pathology of "fallen arches", with an evolved trait which might offer a selective advantage. They are completely different. Meldrum has addressed this. There is no competitive/reproductive advantage to fallen arches.

The evolutionary response to increased weight is stronger feet, not weaker ones. Look at all the big animals. They may have bigger surface area, but they are stronger, not weaker in the arch/toe walking progression. Incidentally, the classic quadriped animal adaptation to uneven mountainous terrain is to evolve a toewalking hooved foot, right? In some ways this is a progression of the longitudinal arch structure. Big flat floppy appendages are usually thought of in the animal world as an adaptation to an aquatic environment, right?

(incidentally, I am reminded of the PGF: if the subject was a bigfoot, and had these enormous floppy feet that allowed her to go straight up mountains, why didn't she escape that way, rather than walking along the relatively flat creek bed?).

[Guest ajciani]

I have walked up some pretty steep slopes (70'ish degrees). My big floppy feet made it pretty easy, as I just turned them outward to contour the slope and get a good foot hold. Of course, that might only be possible with a hard arch. If I had a mid-tarsal break, I am sure I would have had an extra set of muscles involved.

Just from my own experience, I would say the human foot is well suited to any terrain, except for maybe mud and deep snow. I'm not sure how a mid-tarsal break would change this. It might help spread weight, and allow better mud and snow performance. For mountainous terrain, it might be a little more energy intensive.

[Guest]

what would be a greater coup for Todd Disotell than identifying bigfoot DNA?

Parn, since you mention Disotell in just about every post, perhaps if you ever come across a sample them maybe you should send it to him.....

for the rest of us I am quite sure we can make up our own minds who we want to send samples too.....

I think Vil came up with the best idea, split the samples and send them to different labs, works good for me and the two examples of labs would prolly be the ones I would choose....

after that IF I have some good dna, then I might send it to disotell to see if he would try to take it apart......

after all he is starting to be known as "the bigfoot debunker" he specifically says they are not out there......

http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2010/02/human_origins_expert_on_bigfoot_the_first_primates.html

http://www.science20.com/rugbyologist/blog/smackdown_chimp_dna_vs_orangutan_fossils

[southernyahoo]

I've tested 50 samples. I've said over and over, "I will analyze credible data because I either do good science and debunk it, or I have the find of the century." Either way, as a scientist, it's no lose. Tenure helps.

Disotell looses points with me when he pontificates about peoples credibility he doesn't even know, and then claims "good science" when he hasn't given his methods or actual results pertaining to his "alleged" debunking of evidence. He might be on the level, but he's not doing anyone a service when people are trying to learn something about the evidence they have and want proof that they can have independently verified. The standards of "good science" don't change just because you're dealing with laymen.

[Guest]

what would be more interesting to see is if there was a chain of evidence established for all of those 50 samples he has claimed to have done........

[Guest vilnoori]

Keep in mind that robust types have developed from gracile types more than once in the the history of bipedal hominins. A. afarensis predates boisei, ethiopicus, and presumably they derive from it. Similarly African erectus types like H. ergaster predate and are thought to be ancestral to H. erectus erectus from Asia, and Neanderthals.

It has been pointed out before that a saggital crest could merely be a short term evolutionary morphological adjustment to larger chewing muscles plus a size increase.

Also flat feet as shown in a footprint could be due to a large fat/callous pad on the sole of the foot vs. actual bone structure. There is no doubt in my mind from the footprints that these "flat-footed" creatures were extremely adept at climbing very steep slopes, however it was done. I haven't seen it, only the footprints. We also have to take into account that they may be using arms as well to get up slopes. One account here described the climbing motion as "a ninja" which gives us the image of something much more active in all parts of the body, not a casual stroll up the mountain.

Thanks for the very interesting input on the specific DNA tests, ajciani.

Also think about cold adaptation and aquatic adaptation as possibly contributing to a bulky, large and robust body type. That was definitely a factor in the difference of makeup between Neanderthals and modern humans. We are tropical creatures, so slender and hairless, adapted to endurance hunting and omnivorous (possibly seaside) gathering, while they were much more carnivorous and probably expended their energy in short bursts of prodigious strength. Leaping on, spearing at close quarters, wrestling down their prey vs. us, shooting something with a poisoned arrow and following it for hours, waiting for it to bleed to death or fall asleep (like the San people do). It takes a lot of intelligence to develop the latter method, figure out poisons (and how much to use), and distance operational weaponry, know how to track game accurately, and how to build fire/keep warm and safe at nights with our vulnerable, slight, hairless bodies.

Edited October 15, 2010 by vilnoori

[Guest parnassus]

I have walked up some pretty steep slopes (70'ish degrees). My big floppy feet made it pretty easy, as I just turned them outward to contour the slope and get a good foot hold. Of course, that might only be possible with a hard arch. If I had a mid-tarsal break, I am sure I would have had an extra set of muscles involved.

Just from my own experience, I would say the human foot is well suited to any terrain, except for maybe mud and deep snow. I'm not sure how a mid-tarsal break would change this. It might help spread weight, and allow better mud and snow performance. For mountainous terrain, it might be a little more energy intensive.

but you don't have big floppy feet. You have a semirigid longitudinal arch, with or without boots. which are also pretty rigid. Yes, they do work pretty well in most environments. Let me also draw your attention to the descending mountains, which happens just as much as ascending. Again, large mammals which inhabit the extreme montane environments have evolved smaller contact surfaces, toe walking structures. Big floppy feet tend to create stumbling, especially on uneven environments. Try walking in swim fins. Big floppy feet help in the water, not on land.