If Bigfoot Were Real.

[FarArcher]

2 hours ago, guyzonthropus said:

Perhaps it's inefficient in terms of our needs over our past, but maybe quite effective for theirs in that they utilise climbing far more than do we, at least at some stages of their lives.

 

Sure seems so.  There's something "wrong" with it's ankle.  Unlike us, who in climbing tend to use toes, limiting our surface contact, they seem to be able to keep their foot relatively flat, and have far superior traction through multiples of surface contact.

 

They may be at a disadvantage on a ballroom dance floor doing the Rhumba in heeled dancing shoes, but they're finely tuned for their environment.

[salubrious]

4 hours ago, norseman said:

I would say the Sasquatch gait is way more inefficient. They have a mid tarsal break instead of a longitudinal arch. Which allows us to have some spring in our step.

They walk by leading with their toes. Humans walk exactly the same way if they don't have shoes, unless they are very sure of the surface on which they are walking. You will find that if you walk by leading with your bare toes instead of your heels that you gait is inline and your head does not bob.

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

25 minutes ago, salubrious said:

They walk by leading with their toes. Humans walk exactly the same way if they don't have shoes, unless they are very sure of the surface on which they are walking. You will find that if you walk by leading with your bare toes instead of your heels that you gait is inline and your head does not bob.

I have a midtarsal break, though.

[FarArcher]

13 minutes ago, Cryptic Megafauna said:

I have a midtarsal break, though.

 

 

Uhhhh, how big is your foot?

[guyzonthropus]

Is that like a mid-term break?

[Guest Cryptic Megafauna]

2 hours ago, FarArcher said:

 

 

Uhhhh, how big is your foot?

I learned english just so I could come out of the bush to tell you that.

I spent years listening to BF hunters in the woods before I could approximate their limited verbal offerings.

Never could figure out what all the hooting and hollering and banging sticks was about, though.

Must be a very primitive species with the frontal cortex taking up with noise making and threat displays.

[FarArcher]

That's hilarious!

 

So YOU'RE the one responsible for all these foot castings!

[Guest DWA]

20 hours ago, FarArcher said:

 

Sure seems so.  There's something "wrong" with it's ankle.  Unlike us, who in climbing tend to use toes, limiting our surface contact, they seem to be able to keep their foot relatively flat, and have far superior traction through multiples of surface contact.

 

They may be at a disadvantage on a ballroom dance floor doing the Rhumba in heeled dancing shoes, but they're finely tuned for their environment.

I learned long ago that even for us, the compliant gait is superior for climbing steeps.  Do I use it a lot?  No, and force of habit is the only excuse I can offer. It's probable that the musculoskeletal endowment is different as well for an animal using it exclusively.

 

The current theory that distance running is the human evolutionary superpower (for one thing we are the only organism that runs 26 miles for fun) falls right in line with this.  Sasquatch is more of a generalist and frequents terrain where that is selected for.

[guyzonthropus]

Personally, with my arthritic knees, I use a compliant gait a large percentage of the time. And I'm usually barefoot.

With a bit of forward leaning, one can get along quite well, and build up a good deal of momentum, especially going downhill.... by lengthening one's stride, things really pick up.

Crypto- just plusses that last one of yours! Funny!

[FarArcher]

1 hour ago, DWA said:

I learned long ago that even for us, the compliant gait is superior for climbing steeps.  Do I use it a lot?  No, and force of habit is the only excuse I can offer. It's probable that the musculoskeletal endowment is different as well for an animal using it exclusively.

 

The current theory that distance running is the human evolutionary superpower (for one thing we are the only organism that runs 26 miles for fun) falls right in line with this.  Sasquatch is more of a generalist and frequents terrain where that is selected for.

 

 

I'm not up to snuff on the term "compliant gait," but I'll dig a bit and see if I can learn more of it.

 

That thing I saw - he had something "wrong" with his ankles, and something "wrong" with his knees.  They don't run like we do - not even close.  I hate to say it looked more like cross-country skiiing - but that's the closest thing I could use to give someone an idea of how this ol' boy was running.

 

And for someone who had something "wrong" with both his ankles and knees - this guy was covering some real ground - effortlessly.

[SWWASAS]

I wonder if the human arch is traceable back to common ancestry with chimps where they are tree dwellers and need to grasp limbs with both hands and feet.   Once we came out of the trees and became savana walkers,   we lost the grasping need and our feet evolved into that needed for bipedal ground walkers.   We have little need to grasp anything with our feet by folding them like we do our hands.  Could it be that BF either never lived in trees or came out of them before humans did and lost the arch altogether?      More questions to ask Meldrum when I have a chance.  

[MIB]

Our foot including extended big toe and arch, plus our eyes adapted for bright daylight, plus our thermo-regulatory system that is almost unique in the animal kingdom are adaptations for running extreme distances on open plains in bright sun.   There are a lot of animals that are faster than we are sprinting but very few, maybe 3-4, can keep up with a conditioned human over 100-150 mile distances.

 

We've come a long ways, adaptation-wise, from the trees.    Sort of a personal note: I apparently detached a muscle deep in my calf which my physical therapist says humans haven't needed since we left the trees.   It's a relic.  Many of his patient athletes have the same injury.   It hurts like holy hell when it flares up but I think he's right because I've still done several 15 mile or so day hikes, all I have to do is manage the swelling so it doesn't have a secondary impact on my achilles tendon.   I find it interesting when this seemingly dry theoretical stuff lands in my lap (or leg) in a very personal way.

 

Anyway, if you consider our specializations for high temp, daylight, long distance running, and think about what adaptations another (because there have always been at least two) human species might have to avoid direct competition and you come up with adaptations for cool, temperate climates, walking mountains, and nocturnal tendencies.   Sound like anyone we have a forum here to talk about?     'course, if they got their feet set in their environment first, it's possible some of our more extreme adaptations have been to avoid competition with them rather than the other way around.

 

MIB

[guyzonthropus]

"Sound like anyone we have" "here".....not sure just who you're referring to.....lol

 

While we currently interpret that whole"let's-go-for-a-marathon" physiology of ours as the result of countless generations of predecessors who chose to "run down (to) the store" rather than invent the pointy kill-y stick, but perhaps MIB is on to something here... 

"yeah, those big hairy folks always win the gold in the sprints, but we gottem licked in everything over 500 metres" or " they might be quick, and we might be just that tasty, but they simply don't have the stamina to run us down through the cacti and scrub, much less find us in a buffalo herd!(though they did get pretty sneaky with those hoof-heal lifts they came up with to fool us when we look for their legs under the t'tonkas.....tricky prairie monkeys!) Of course a heavy snow drift does pretty much,reduce us to convenient chilled treats...."I-I-I'd t-t-tra-tra-trade to a c-c-com- compliant g-gait f-f-for j-just a b-bi-bit of f-f-fur a-an-and a p-pair of t-t-tennis ra-ra-raquets"

 

as for other species that might do similar feats..wolves, cape hunting dogs, dingos(?) hyenas, pronghorns(at least at our speed), . Maybe some of the farther ranging migrators(carribou, wildebeest/zebras, lemmings, army ants) not sure of the kangaroos in that their locomotion systematics essentially reset their legs following each jump.  Of course cetaceans probably could were the humans running along side a canal...

 

I wonder if the Pleistocene ursine called the "running bear" utilized a similar  strategy in predating upon the plains dwelling megafaunal herbivores...running down much larger prey in order to tire them to exhaustion, making for safer/easier kills. Wonder if there's evidence of multiple bears feeding off the same kill in the form of, say, teeth marks upon prey bones, which might indicate cooperative hunting strategies and a more developed social order amongst them prior to their extinction/rug-indication by monkeys...

[Guest DWA]

6 hours ago, FarArcher said:

 

 

I'm not up to snuff on the term "compliant gait," but I'll dig a bit and see if I can learn more of it.

 

That thing I saw - he had something "wrong" with his ankles, and something "wrong" with his knees.  They don't run like we do - not even close.  I hate to say it looked more like cross-country skiiing - but that's the closest thing I could use to give someone an idea of how this ol' boy was running.

 

And for someone who had something "wrong" with both his ankles and knees - this guy was covering some real ground - effortlessly.

Compliant gait is the term used for a walking gait a significant feature of which is not locking the knees as we do.  The term comes from analysis of the P/G film.  Not sure how much research had been done on it prior; not like fossils would provide much evidence for it and no extant primate is bipedal enough for long enough.

 

Cross-country skiing and bicycling have been *frequently* used to describe the smoothness of the movement.  Yet another bennie of being well acquainted with the encounter literature.  ;-)

 

 

Edited August 21, 2016 by DWA

[Patterson-Gimlin]

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A god description . It can be duplicated by humans for a short period of time . Not likely to be done by humans for long periods of time especially in rough terrain.