Squatchy: Giganto Or Not?

[Guest FuriousGeorge]

except for it to get to North America a huge tropical largely herbivorous monkey would have to cross a huge region in an alien ecosystem and survive the journey and evolve rapidly into something more squatch like, proto human is so much more likely.

Pretty good point. Never thought about that. I can't picture a Giganto-like feeding on primarily tide pool creatures, mollusks and meat across the land bridge. I can picture how the grazers made it but not something that needs to munch larger vegetation. Maybe lichen? It is a bigger stretch. Good point.

[Guest]

Found the right blog.

Dissection of and discussion on the Marked Hominid Thursday 2-11-2011 Forteanzoology.blogspot

THIS was the article with something for everyone. The author pulls a lot of info together into some interesting ways.

[Huntster]

Huntster, on 19 February 2011 - 01:00 PM, said:

What little we have to document Giganto can be accredited to what is believed of sasquatch in these ways:

1) It's size fits

2) It's location on the Pacific Rim can be considered a plus vrs. a location in, say, Africa

except for it to get to North America a huge tropical largely herbivorous monkey would have to cross a huge region in an alien ecosystem and survive the journey and evolve rapidly into something more squatch like, proto human is so much more likely.

Do you believe in global warming?

[Guest]

I dont know if i would be right to say we need to find a fossilized skull to look at

the foramen magnum and pelvis to see if it was even bipedal

That would probably be considered absolutely dispositive of the issue, but the existing analysis of the jaw structure is highly diagnostic on it's own merits.

[Guest]

That is true of Mulder's great cat example (lions & tigers) primarily because they inhabit different ranges. It is certainly true of the great bears of the north.

Some of the smaller "Great Cats" are also confirmed in the wild, such as the Blynx (Bobcat/Lynx), possibly the Jaglion (Jaguar/Lion) [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera_hybrid#Jaglion ], and the Dogla (Tiger/Leopard) [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera_hybrid#Dogla ].

In addition, many of the zoo-born specimens were in fact not man-bred, but the result of spontaneous mating between the cats in question.

[Guest]

except for it to get to North America a huge tropical largely herbivorous monkey would have to cross a huge region in an alien ecosystem and survive the journey and evolve rapidly into something more squatch like, proto human is so much more likely.

The documented presence of the red panda, an ecological and temporal contemporary of G in N America is highly dispositive that the ecological conditions in that time frame were NOT "alien" and hostile to G survival for such a journey. (LMS pp95-96)

[Guest]

one more thing we disagree on, the logic in it being giganto just aint there

There are too many documented ape features for it to be from the "human" line, let alone the size.

[Guest]

Pretty good point. Never thought about that. I can't picture a Giganto-like feeding on primarily tide pool creatures, mollusks and meat across the land bridge. I can picture how the grazers made it but not something that needs to munch larger vegetation. Maybe lichen? It is a bigger stretch. Good point.

See my response to Fenris plus LMS pp187-191 for a discussion of the dietary requirements of a large omnivore and the relative ease with which one can obtain needed food in the appropriate habitat.

[Guest FuriousGeorge]

See my response to Fenris plus LMS pp187-191 for a discussion of the dietary requirements of a large omnivore and the relative ease with which one can obtain needed food in the appropriate habitat.

It could be. The odds would be greater IMO. To me, the transition from an animal that probably ate mostly bamboo and fruit to becoming an efficient omnivore can happen. Would it evolve into a smaller size if it did this? I don't know. It's a bit harder to picture than something that was already an omnivore in through that area. I'm not saying it can't be done. It's just less likely, in my mind. Keep in mind that the vegetation in the interior of the Bering land bridge was probably Arctic fauna. What animal in terms of crossing was able to utilize that coupled with marine fauna from the coast and critters. We could do it, so that image is more prevalent in my mind I guess. You could be right too. If the evolution did take place before it crossed I don't see why it couldn't make it. It's just a lot more "ifs" than something that was already capable to cross that's all. By no means did I make a decision. Fenris just put up something that never crossed my mind so I gave him props.

[Guest]

It could be. The odds would be greater IMO. To me, the transition from an animal that probably ate mostly bamboo and fruit to becoming an efficient omnivore can happen.

There is no evidence that G was a bamboo eater. The teeth show evidence of silicates as part of the diet, of which bamboo is only one type of silicate.

Keep in mind that the vegetation in the interior of the Bering land bridge was probably Arctic fauna.

Dr Joeseph Wright, chief geographer of the US Cost and Geodetic Survey indicates that the climate of the land bridge was similar to that of the Asian mountains of that time (which is the known range of G Blacki). (LMS pp 95)

Dr Meldrum further writes:

The Bering land bridge is often envisioned as a frozen arctic wasteland or bleak windswept tundra--a seemingly unlikely habitat for an ape. However, the fossil record of past vegetation in the region indicates that during the early to middle Miocene, a continuous temperate corridor of deciduous broadleaf and coniferous forest extended from Northeast Asia, across the land connection in the region of the present Bering Strait, down across western North America into the Pacific Northwest. Global cooling, beginning about 2.6 million years ago, first eliminated the broadleaf trees, and then intermittently reduced the coniferous forests, more particularly in the interior regions, while sparing the coastal forests to a greater degree. LMS pp95-96

Dr Meldrum then goes on to list several other ecological contemporaries of G that are definitively established to have migrated to N America and firmly established themselves. There is even evidence that the Asian hominid Homo erectus made the crossing.

Given that, Dr Meldrum asks (quite correctly, in my opinion):

That the notion of Homo erectus in North America is even entertained by serious researchers ahas implications for the potential range of Gigantopithecus. If red pandas, and perhaps Homo erectus, both sympatric contemporaries of Gigantopithicus in Asia, successfully migrated to North America, what would prevent a similar distribution of Gigantopithicus? LMS pp96

It's easy to look at the climate in that region today and just assume it was like that then...but that's not what the fossil evidence shows.

[Guest LAL]

"Bamboo feeding, dental microwear, and diet of the Pleistocene ape Gigantopithecus blacki

Daegling, DJ | Grine, FE

South African Journal of Science [s. AFR. J. SCI./S.-AFR. TYDSKR. WET.]. Vol. 90, no. 10, pp. 527-532. 1994.

Bamboo has been inferred to have comprised a significant portion of the diet of Gigantopithecus blacki. In an attempt to test this hypothesis, occlusal microwear on the teeth of this Pleistocene ape is compared with that on the molars of two extant bamboo specialists, Hapalemur griseus (the gentle lemur) and Ailuropoda melanoleuca (the giant panda). Bamboo feeding does not appear to produce a consistent pattern of microwear in pandas and lemurs. Their wear fabrics may vary because of differences in tooth and body size, dissimilar dental morphologies and concomitant differences in masticatory dynamics, the utilization of different plant parts by the two taxa, and/or differences in oral food preparation prior to mastication. Because extant bamboo specialists exhibit dissimilar microwear patterns, tooth wear of G. blacki provides little direct evidence for bamboo feeding. Compared to the dental microwear of living anthropoids, however, Gigantopithecus is intermediate between folivorous forms and hard-object specialists, and is most similar to Pan troglodytes, a predominantly frugivorous species"

Dr. Daegling is the author of Bigfoot Exposed and Dr. Meldrum's former roommate.

[WV FOOTER]

Thanks Mulder

[Guest]

And thanks LAL for finding the citation!

[Guest LAL]

And thanks LAL for finding the citation!

You're welcome. I clicked something that gives me automatic Google Scholar so it came right up. I remembered Daegling was part of the study.

Weidenreich thought Giganto was a human ancestor back when anything remotely humanish was supposed to fit in the linear model. The idea was shot down by Pilbeam when jaws were found but those reduced canines require a certain amount of "Hm", IMHO.

[Guest fenris]

Pretty good point. Never thought about that. I can't picture a Giganto-like feeding on primarily tide pool creatures, mollusks and meat across the land bridge. I can picture how the grazers made it but not something that needs to munch larger vegetation. Maybe lichen? It is a bigger stretch. Good point.

exactly, it defies too much logic. Now if you have an already oversized quasi neandrathal like the latest tv show suggests, there we have a much better contender from a logic standpoint, although I admit that was the first I had heard of the big fellas mentioned there. Otherewise for the giganto theory to work I think you need to explain their spread different, couldn't have happened over the land bridge imho.