Operation Persistence

[WSA]

To extrapolate a little more on this...

If you have a superior sense of hearing, you don't need to bang on trees, clack rocks together and bellow in the night, do you? Has there ever even been a description of the visible outer ear structure of a WA? Not too many, if at all. I mean, they have to have ears, but they are not exactly proportional, are they?

If you have a superior sense of smell, do you need the B.O. that is consistently reported? Nah, you would rely on pheromones to communicate with your kind, not an in-your-face-eye-watering funk.

So what remaining sense is there on the menu if you want to succeed as a species?

[Cotter]

WSA,

Excellent last couple of posts...

[salubrious]

If you have a superior sense of hearing, you don't need to bang on trees, clack rocks together and bellow in the night, do you? Has there ever even been a description of the visible outer ear structure of a WA? Not too many, if at all. I mean, they have to have ears, but they are not exactly proportional, are they?

If you have a superior sense of smell, do you need the B.O. that is consistently reported? Nah, you would rely on pheromones to communicate with your kind, not an in-your-face-eye-watering funk.

Wood knocks seem to be a way of saying "I am over here". So yes, they do need to do these things, signalling in a way that makes it less obvious that its them. FWIW I saw two of them close up from the side and their ears were hidden beneath their hair.

I think the funk, which is not universal in all sightings, as to do with a common predator strategy- to roll in something funky, to cover their actual scent.

[Guest]

WSA/DM...If I remember correctly, you guys are skeptics, right? Just wanted to say that I appreciate y'all, and the last few posts are well-thought out, and informative. Open-minded skeptics seem to give me the most to ponder.

And thanks, Bipto, for sharing all of your information w/us. I hadn't caught up on this thread in awhile. You guys have some interesting occurrences going on in A-X.

[dmaker]

Hey PACNWS, thanks for the comments. I'm a skeptic, yes, but WSA ( if I understand him correctly ) is more of the "jury is out, but leaning towards real" type of gentleman.

[WSA]

dmaker....just going where the evidence says go, that's all. What it tells me is, regardless of whatever other adaptations a WA is likely to have, fantastic eyesight might be foremost. That can buy you a lot of success in the evolutionary race. Back that up with speed and strength and what will it get you? Well, just to extrapolate a little further, in SE OK it is likely to give you a high protein diet of wild hog. I'm not saying WA's traded eyesight for general intelligence. Plenty of sight predators exhibit very high function. I'm only suggesting it might explain something often stated about their apparent lack of technology: Why spend calories on tool making if you don't need them? If you are succeeding already, don't fix what ain't broke. One thing you have to say about the putative WA is they are **** successful at what they do.

PNWS: Yep, looking for hard scientific confirmation, and betting I will get it, but having a lot of fun in the interim.

[Guest]

Why spend calories on tool making if you don't need them? If you are succeeding already, don't fix what ain't broke.

Interesting thought, but nearly every task can be made more efficient or easier with a tool. I don't think it's a logical decision to develop tools versus not. As if the ape is sitting there and says to himself, "You know...If I pulled the the little branches off this bigger branch and *beat* the deer with it...nah!" It seems to me that tool development is the result of innate creativity and just happens for those species who uses them.

[dmaker]

I understand that WSA, but again you're not really speaking to the question of do you think this adaptation is for all BF, or do you see OK WA as a separate species? I don't think enhanced eye sight would have been a favourable trait for surviving in extremely cold climates.

[Guest]

Also, FWIW, I recall an anthropologist friend of mine once defining a tool as something that has been altered to perform a task as opposed to something that's being used as what it is to perform a task. For example, a rock used to break open a shell isn't a tool (but may qualify as tool use?) but a rock that's been formed to have a sharp edge that's then used to cut would be a tool.

[dmaker]

^^^ That is how I would understand defining tool usage as well Bipto.

[WSA]

Why spend calories on tool making if you don't need them? If you are succeeding already, don't fix what ain't broke.

Interesting thought, but nearly every task can be made more efficient or easier with a tool. I don't think it's a logical decision to develop tools versus not. As if the ape is sitting there and says to himself, "You know...If I pulled the the little branches off this bigger branch and *beat* the deer with it...nah!" It seems to me that tool development is the result of innate creativity and just happens for those species who uses them.

Right, not to say there is a conscious decision by the individual...just generalizing as to what the whole species needs to pass on the genes. Necessity being the mother, as they say, I doubt any species adapts for tool making or use just for kicks. Unless and until that tool makes you more likely to get a mate, and/or fills your belly, the species has no other drivers for tool making I don't think.

Dmaker: Frankly, I can't see superior eyesight NOT being an advantage in ANY environment, if it helps you mate/safeguard young, bag your prey or locate other food. Same would go for hearing or smell. I'm merely working backwards from what the evidence is, and that is:The WA exhibits an uncanny visual acuity. It has to be for a reason, which the theory of natural selection tells us is to help it to reproduce and/or get food. This population is both eating and reproducing, so superior eyesight has helped it do that. Or if it doesn't, and it is not driving selection through those imperatives, there is something extremely interesting we've yet to learn...amongst a whole bunch of other things that is!

Consider this too: The furtive nature of the WA, as Bipto's people has described it, could be aided and abetted by superior eyesight. Yes, a superior sense of smell or hearing COULD explain it also, and those might exist as well in these animals, but more than anything, this animal seems to survive mainly by seeing us before we see it. I don't consider it a coincidence that the one who very nearly got itself "harvested" by one of the Operation X Team members was approached from behind, if I remember correctly. It didn't smell or hear the person who was approaching with deadly intent. If their vision is as good as reported, avoiding a trailcam would be child's play. All those who have "locked eyes" with one can tell you they understand an optic aperture very well.

One thing that does puzzle me though, I'll admit, is the consistent description of the WA not being able to independently turn its head to swivel and look to either side. This is one of the hallmarks of the species, and the P/G film exhibits it very well. But, this has to be an extreme handicap for a visual predator, but obviously, if the WA is one, they've overcome this. It could be other adaptations that limit head motion (large neck and jaw musculature?) are as advantageous. Then again, natural selection is not perfect, or we would not all be born with an appendix, right?

Edited April 23, 2013 by WSA

[dmaker]

I didn't mean to imply that enhanced eyesight would not be an advantage in ANY environment. I meant that for the sacrificed cranium space, and ergo decreased brain development, it would not seem to advantageous enough in extreme climates to warrant the retardation of intelligence.

Bigfoots in extreme cold climates do not seem to exhibit what I would imagine to be traits that would help it to survive in those conditions. For example, white fur to help with camouflage during predation; or black skin to help absorb heat ( as in polar bears); or a much thicker coat of fur/hair; etc.

What we are entertaining right now is a proposed adaption that would be very helpful in all climates, to be sure, but I question if higher intelligence might not have been more helpful in some of the reported ranges for Bigfoot, and thus as the brain grew these larger eyes would not have developed. Or we're talking about separate species with separate evolutionary development paths. And that just seems a little too far fetched. Bigfoot descriptions ( at least the ones that are taken seriously) seem to be pretty consistent, no? So what is exhibited in one specimen in one area must almost surely be the same for every specimen on the continent? So in that particular case I would wonder if increased eye sight would be the trait that evolution would have chosen for a primate that lives in sub arctic like conditions in the winter months in some areas of its range.

Edited April 23, 2013 by dmaker

[Rockape]

WSA/DM...If I remember correctly, you guys are skeptics, right? Just wanted to say that I appreciate y'all, and the last few posts are well-thought out, and informative. Open-minded skeptics seem to give me the most to ponder.

And thanks, Bipto, for sharing all of your information w/us. I hadn't caught up on this thread in awhile. You guys have some interesting occurrences going on in A-X.

Agreed PacNWS.

And dmaker, I'm not sure if you'll remember but awhile back in the chat I made the statement "Concerning Bigfoot, the BFF is the only place that matters".

You scoffed at that but I think it was because you didn't understand what I meant. Well, this thread is what I meant.

When it comes to discussing BF and hearing divergent viewpoints, this forum is the only place you get that, at least in this excellent form.

Some great reading the last page or so folks, keep up the good work, I will now shut up.

Edited April 23, 2013 by Rockape

[dmaker]

I feel compelled to add that my points around evolution, climate and intelligence were from the hip and sprung from lay person logic and musing. I hope that I did not give the impression that I was schooled in these things or had done or read vast studies. Just an ignorant lay person speculating.

So I did a quick google. There do seem to be schools of thought that describe what I was clumsily groping for. And also there are, of course, those that do not. What I was trying to get at was something like the below excerpt from "Temperature and evolutionary novelty as forces behind the evolution of general intelligence - Satoshi Kanazawa" Intelligence 36 (2008) 99 - 108

Two leading intelligence researchers (Lynn, 1991;Rushton, 1995) both point to the importance of climate and temperature in the evolution of general intelligence. Life in temperate and cold climate in Asia and Europe is harder to survive than that in tropical and subtropical climate in Africa, where humans lived most of their evolutionary history. Food is scarcer, and shelter and clothing more difficult to construct properly, in colder than in warmer climate. Cognitive demands placed by the need to survive harsh winters in cold climate select for higher intelligence,and thus general intelligence is expected to evolve and become higher in colder climates. In this view, the colder the

climate, the higher general intelligence evolves.

So as I was saying above I would expect the "universal" Bigfoot if that is indeed what it is to have adaptations that would be best suited to all the climates that it is reported to inhabit. So any adaptation that sacrifices a great degree of intelligence would seem counter productive, to me, for an animal that lives in extreme cold.

Hey, Rockape, yeah I do remember that chat session. That was 6 months or so ago now I think. But you are quite right. Some threads here can contain some pretty interesting ideas from all points on the Bigfoot spectrum.

Also, I should probably point out that it may be folly to map human evolutionary patterns onto Bigfoot simply because it is purported to be a primate. The paper that I mentioned clearly deals with the development of human intelligence in human evolution. Not Bigfoot. It may be apples and oranges from an scientific standpoint.

[Cotter]

Would we agree that a BF would have the largest brain of the primates?

Let's take an 8 foot creature for an example.