Is Bf Instead A Plains Ape?

[norseman]

Norse, you're not incorrect, but careful not to discount just what biomass there was upon the Great Plains of America. The historic plains, with their bison herds, are among the largest biological ecosystem known. The cattle country west of the Missouri river once contained unfathomable numbers of bison.

 

Do you realize just how enormous even a cow bison is? Yes, grizzlies walked and predated among the vast herds, and wolves took their share. The sheer number and mass of the animals roaming the vast grasslands of the Great Plains was greater than the migration of Africa.

 

Could BF have made a living among the enormous herds of bison? Perhaps, I certainly can't discount the proposition. I will say, considering the impressive size and ferocity of an adult American Bison, I seriously doubt it. And again, the old lack of fossil remains is a serious challenge to the proposal.

 

I'm not discounting it at all. Only that the plains were not the only game in town. Even the Bison themselves...........are not a plains animal per say. There were Bison historically in Kentucky before European settlement. And Canada still has the Woods Bison. Even Yellowstone Bison are not in a truly plains ecosystem.

 

Pronghorn? I guess I would have to say that is truly a plains animal. I know of no other account of them living anywhere else.

[Incorrigible1]

 

Norse, you're not incorrect, but careful not to discount just what biomass there was upon the Great Plains of America. The historic plains, with their bison herds, are among the largest biological ecosystem known. The cattle country west of the Missouri river once contained unfathomable numbers of bison.

 

Do you realize just how enormous even a cow bison is? Yes, grizzlies walked and predated among the vast herds, and wolves took their share. The sheer number and mass of the animals roaming the vast grasslands of the Great Plains was greater than the migration of Africa.

 

Could BF have made a living among the enormous herds of bison? Perhaps, I certainly can't discount the proposition. I will say, considering the impressive size and ferocity of an adult American Bison, I seriously doubt it. And again, the old lack of fossil remains is a serious challenge to the proposal.

 

 

Pronghorn? I guess I would have to say that is truly a plains animal. I know of no other account of them living anywhere else.

 

Fair enough. Of course there are sub-species bison adapted to woodlands or forested conditions. It's nearly predictable. Those sub-species still exist, whilst the hundreds of millions of plains bison were exterminated. It became a military dictum.

 

I grew up near the eastern, historic hinterlands of those vast, enormous plains and open ground, to the west. Sparse rain, not suitable to deciduous trees, the American Great Plains were a huge, vast plain of naturally seeded grasslands. Bison are among the only known animals to walk into a blizzard. They were so ably-suited to their environment, walking into the storm shortened the time they were exposed to it.

 

Grizzlies, and before them, the short-faced bears, were able to actively hunt bison. Wolves, with their innate teamwork, were a factor. Mountain lions / cougars could take a calf. Coyotes were probably not in the scene, due to the range of the prairie version wolf. Wolves naturally cull numbers of coyotes, within their territory. Bigfoot? Perhaps, especially had they cooperated. Have my doubts, though.

 

There are still dung-beetles on the plains of western Nebraska. I think their numbers pale compared to when the bison herds roamed the Great Plains.

 

Edit: Dang it, Norse. I forget the main gist of my posting. You mentioned pronghorn antelope as a natural denizen of the plains. I agree. I will also mention one can search for "american cheetah," and find there were American counterparts to African cheetahs. It's one reason pronghorn are able to run in excess of 50mph. Nothing else, current, comes near that speed.

Edited May 26, 2013 by Incorrigible1

[Guest DWA]

 

Wolves and grizz may have lived in the mountains, but they are much more creatures of open country.  The attributes of sasquatch give it an advantage in forest...which is one reason why black bears stayed there rather than compete with grizz in more open habitats.

 

That's not true either.

 

Unless of course you define coastal brown Bear as not Griz. As for wolves? There were Eastern Wolves when Europeans first came to this continent. No, I would say they both are adapted to a variety of terrain and traditionally so.

 

I said "they are much more creatures of open country."  Their adaptations make it clear where they evolved.

 

(Neither, for example, can climb trees.  One can see that elsewhere.  Gray fox?  Forest animal; climbs trees.  Red fox?  Coyote?  Open-country animals; can't.)

 

Wolves and grizz (and red fox and coyote) can function in forest.  But they aren't spending most of their time there, which is why black bears (and bobcats) do and are never far from trees.  Even in the Arctic, black bears are never far from a tree, where for grizz and wolves it's routine to be out of sight of them.

 

I,  personally, never considered Alaska brown and grizz to be anywhere near the same animal.  (The lumpers won over the splitters on that one.)  But the former, where they are found in forest, are found invariably near streams running with food.

Edited May 26, 2013 by DWA

[norseman]

A couple of points:

A grizzly can climb a tree. And coastal brown bear and grizzly are the same species but boone and crocket score them in seperate categories.

[Guest DWA]

A grizz can't climb the trees a black can.  We are better tree-climbers than grizz.  A squirrel isn't any better than a black.  The only diff between the trees each can climb is the weight of the latter.

 

Watch a grizz climb a tree and one can see they didn't exactly evolve to do that.  Bears are generalists by nature.  The grizz can hack it in the woods for short periods.  But it's not where he's spending most of his time.

 

I go with B and C.  I just never saw them as the same animal (although lumping seems to have the recent upper hand over splitting in taxonomy).

[Guest DWA]

I should add:  watch us climb a tree and it's clear we're trying to skate on basic primate fundamentals.  Recent evolution hasn't been good to us on the tree-climbing front any more than it has the griz.

[norseman]

A grizz can't climb the trees a black can.  We are better tree-climbers than grizz.  A squirrel isn't any better than a black.  The only diff between the trees each can climb is the weight of the latter.

 

Watch a grizz climb a tree and one can see they didn't exactly evolve to do that.  Bears are generalists by nature.  The grizz can hack it in the woods for short periods.  But it's not where he's spending most of his time.

 

I go with B and C.  I just never saw them as the same animal (although lumping seems to have the recent upper hand over splitting in taxonomy).

 

No......no they can climb trees.

 

http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/grizzly/misunderstood_bear.pdf

 

And no........Grizzlies in the Selkirks spend their whole lives in the forest. Same with Glacier NP and many other places. And we are not talking coastal Brown bears in these instances.

[Guest DWA]

Well, that link says what I am saying:

 

Although their strength and basic generalist nature make climbing trees possible for grizz, they generally aren't doing it.  Black bears are much better at it, and get a hefty share of their food from up in trees.

 

The long claws of grizz are specially adapted for digging up the kinds of food one finds in open country, and not for climbing trees, which one doesn't.  The grizz's aggressiveness is also the evolutionary adaptation of an animal that didn't depend on trees when threatened.  So are the bear's reactions to intruders when with offspring.  I've had a cub treed, in a tree a foot from my face, and the mother staring right at me. 

 

More than once.  Griz?  I'm on my fourth life now.  But they were black bears.  Mom did nothing.  And that's typical. 

 

It's not that grizz can't hack it in woods.  It's that when a black bear wants to escape a grizz he can get into a tree the grizz can't climb.

 

Although now he has to get down, and has to factor his own - and the other bear's - patience into figuring out when.

 

Which, as the link points out, is why one NEVER CONSIDERS A TREE AS AN OPTION in escaping a bear.  As Doug Peacock says and my experience so far bears him out:  any bear that will let you get into a tree is one that is better dealt with on the ground.

 

The good news (maybe):  you are in a tree.  The bad news:  you are now treed.  And you did it to yourself.

Edited May 26, 2013 by DWA

[Guest zenmonkey]

awesome convo guys, really some good info there! A few places that BF has been "spotted" in OK were plains areas with little trees or anything. BIP cast has an episode about it and Alton Higgins from the NAWAC had his sighting in a plains area as well.        food for thought i guess

[Guest DWA]

I think anything living in the temperate zone has to be a bit of a generalist. 

 

The sightings in plains states seem as compelling as any others.  But it's not as though the plains states have no woods.

[Doc Holliday]

considering  most  supposed BF attributes are speculation & theory.....

 

lets  assume the fairly common theories that wood knocks are a possible means of communication  / stick structures perhaps as land marks & directional markers.

 

if so, how would the plains version of BF deal with so many less  trees to knock & use for land marks etc ?

 

point being, if those things were used for communication , the lack thereof could possibly mean a much more vocal squatch if in the plains.....

 

so of the NA BF  stories,(or modern accounts) is there a higher  % / ratio of  plains vs non plains accounts including vocalization?

 

 might give an indication of the  plains ape possibility .

 

 

 

[Gotta Know]

Good points. Yeah, as others pointed out it seems our big friend is likely an ambush predator perhaps best suited for the woods. I don't see him chasing down pronghorn (and I appreciated another link to the exctinct North American equivalent to the cheetah), but I DO see him working well in the fringes of plains and forest. Those river beds and bluffs often forested or heavy in brush, where a wandering band of bison could be intercepted and chased down over short to moderate distances. At one time the sheer volume of bison meant BF would not have had to travel far for his food. Again, I suspect the BFs own huge size is an indicator of the types of prey he evolved to capture--bison certainly being the largest of modern day animals, but I suspect it goes back much further than that.

 

I have hunted caribou in AK and know how fast they cover land and how relentlessly they travel. I imagine BF's long stride, speed and agility was honed by plains/tundra animals like this even before he migrated south after crossing the land bridge (presumably).

 

To Norseman's point that there were many species of elk in the mountains, I appreciate the lesson--makes sense. Perhaps, then, there are sub-species of BF best suited for plains and mountain? I mean, to look at a Tule, Roosevelt or American elk you'd be hard pressed to say they are all that much different, yet we know they are. Different weight. Different food choices. Different behavior.

 

I like the "generalist" description--a lot. Yet at some point, his sheer size tells us a lot about what he evolved to capitalize on. A modern day cave bear, of sorts. Here's a crazy thought: it's been thought that mastadons and mammoths were likely hunted to extinction. Who's to say it was modern humans and/or Neanderthat who did the killing? We had weapons and fire and clothing and tools, so we could afford to be smaller. What if you had to kill animals by sheer strengh and speed? And what about other huge ancient animals gone by the wayside: the aforementioned mammoths, the Irish elk bigger than any modern day moose, etc.? I realize I am mixing my observations here, but if I had to guess I'd say that BF did not evolve to hunt relatively small deer in the south. My guess is that BF evolved to target the largest and most abundant herd animals of the tundra and plains. And they did it using whatever cover they could find for concealment. In today's human-infested era, forests just give them more of what they need in that regard.

 

 

 

I think anything living in the temperate zone has to be a bit of a generalist. 

 

The sightings in plains states seem as compelling as any others.  But it's not as though the plains states have no woods.

Edited May 27, 2013 by Gotta Know

[Guest]

 

I like the "generalist" description--a lot. Yet at some point, his sheer size tells us a lot about what he evolved to capitalize on. A modern day cave bear, of sorts. Here's a crazy thought: it's been thought that mastadons and mammoths were likely hunted to extinction. Who's to say it was modern humans and/or Neanderthat who did the killing? We had weapons and fire and clothing and tools, so we could afford to be smaller. What if you had to kill animals by sheer strengh and speed? And what about other huge ancient animals gone by the wayside: the aforementioned mammoths, the Irish elk bigger than any modern day moose, etc.? I realize I am mixing my observations here, but if I had to guess I'd say that BF did not evolve to hunt relatively small deer in the south. My guess is that BF evolved to target the largest and most abundant herd animals of the tundra and plains. And they did it using whatever cover they could find for concealment. In today's human-infested era, forests just give them more of what they need in that regard.

 

 

My guess is that bigfoot never evolved at all.  If there were so many bigfoot as to drive multiple species to extinction, there'd be a body by now, especially given how common mastodon fossils are.

[Gotta Know]

 

 

My guess is that bigfoot never evolved at all.  If there were so many bigfoot as to drive multiple species to extinction, there'd be a body by now, especially given how common mastodon fossils are.

 

Rolls eyes... I think I'll go over to a Christian site and spend my life's energies convincing these believers they are all wet because they never saw Christ with they're own eyes and there's "no body." I mean, anecdotal evidence just has no merit, right?

[Guest]

 

 

 

My guess is that bigfoot never evolved at all.  If there were so many bigfoot as to drive multiple species to extinction, there'd be a body by now, especially given how common mastodon fossils are.

 

The general consensus is that Chimpanzee populations numbered in the millions just a century ago. There are still hundreds of thousands of Chimpanzees in Africa today. Prior to 2005 scientists had not identified a single Chimpanzee fossil. Even now there have been precious few identified, and those are limited to a small number of teeth.

How is it that MILLIONS of Chimps lived across Africa for hundreds of thousands of years, and it took over a century of exploration before we identified Chimp fossils? Just because we don't have the evidence that meets your criteria for being "proof", doesn't mean the animals don't exist.

 

DWA made a good point in reply to your earlier post. If you would read some of the newspaper articles archived from the late 1800's you would find an extremely interesting phenomenon. "Wild Men, Mountain Devils, Boogers, etc" were often described exhibiting classic Great Ape behaviour before Great Apes were even documented as displaying the behaviors; rock throwing, shaking trees, breaking branches, bluff charges, dropping down to run quadrepedally, etc.

 

Doesn't it even peak your interest that rural folks across the country reported similar great ape behaviors, before the existance of great apes and their common behaviors were even common knowledge?

Edited May 27, 2013 by Irish73