Poll: Which is the Best Candidate for Bigfoot?

[ShadowBorn]

On 5/19/2020 at 9:06 AM, starchunk said:

And not to get political about it, but as the paranormal already has its own section on the forum, how would it go over if a flesh and blood type got too "present" in that section. It seems the management made the choice to separate the two, so if anything maybe a seperate poll covering that end of the spectrum?

Starchunk

No offense taken. What I saw was flesh and blood too. But what I saw does not fit what the poll represents. Giganto does not even come close. I have searched the internet to see what I have seen and there is nothing out there that matches. 

[Mendoza]

6 hours ago, starchunk said:

 

No, the Giganto hypothesis is silly. An alledged ape theorized from a few molars, suddenly gets up from its home range and gets across the land bridge and isn't out competed by everything else there better suited to that environment, and then morphs from a ginormous orangutan into bigfoot. Makes perfect sense... 

 

And have been likely mostly herbivorous, and ill suited for the environment. Pick a reason why Giganto is bunk. Just because Meldrum gave it consideration doesn't make it any less far fetched.

 

We already know of multiple herbivorous Eurasian fauna and megafauna that crossed the Bering land bridge.  Wooly mammoth, bison, musk ox, saiga antelope, to name a few.  There is nothing disqualifyingly farfetched about it.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Mendoza

[Huntster]

3 hours ago, hiflier said:

........And then there's this........

 

While that offers "evidence" that Gigantopithecus might be pongid and not Homo, it does not mean that it is not the ancestor of sasquatches, or that they or their progeny did not cross Beringia. Indeed, from your reference, I went to the Nature article:

 

Quote

.........We demonstrate that Gigantopithecus is a sister clade to orangutans (genus Pongo) with a common ancestor about 12–10 million years ago, implying that the divergence of Gigantopithecus from Pongoforms part of the Miocene radiation of great apes.........

 

Gigantopithecus diverged from pongoforms 10-12 million years ago.

 

That is a damned long time.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Huntster

[norseman]

50 minutes ago, Huntster said:

 

While that offers "evidence" that Gigantopithecus might be pongid and not Homo, it does not mean that it is not the ancestor of sasquatches, or that they or their progeny did not cross Beringia. Indeed, from your reference, I went to the Nature article:

 

 

Gigantopithecus diverged from pongoforms 10-12 million years ago.

 

That is a damned long time.

The common ancestor between Chimps and Humans is 4.5 million years ago....

 

So Giganto was three times as removed from Orangs as we are from Chimps.

 

Let that sink in.

[starchunk]

If it follows the Orangutan model, yes there is plenty. You have a specialist in a tropical environment heading into a new environment with more suited inhabitants already there. For the Giganto theory to gain ground you need a lot more evidence pointing it's nature in a different direction.

[norseman]

4 hours ago, starchunk said:

If it follows the Orangutan model, yes there is plenty. You have a specialist in a tropical environment heading into a new environment with more suited inhabitants already there. For the Giganto theory to gain ground you need a lot more evidence pointing it's nature in a different direction.

What are the better suited inhabitants all ready there?

[Huntster]

4 hours ago, starchunk said:

If it follows the Orangutan model........

 

.......it would remain an Orang.

 

But not only did it not, it never was an orang. The theory clearly states that Giganto and orangs diverged from a common ancestor 10-12 million years ago. Lucy, an Australopithecine, was dated back just 3.2 million years, and look at how much evolution occurred since Lucy walked the Earth.

 

Beringia has been exposed as a grassy steppe and boreal forest several to a dozen times in just the past 100,000 years. How many 100,000 year periods have there been in the past 10 million years? A hundred. Reptilian dinosaur fossils are common in Alaska, either redefining dinosaurs as non-reptilian or proving tropical environments in the Arctic. 

[norseman]

11 minutes ago, Huntster said:

 

.......it would remain an Orang.

 

But not only did it not, it never was an orang. The theory clearly states that Giganto and orangs diverged from a common ancestor 10-12 million years ago. Lucy, an Australopithecine, was dated back just 3.2 million years, and look at how much evolution occurred since Lucy walked the Earth.

 

Beringia has been exposed as a grassy steppe and boreal forest several to a dozen times in just the past 100,000 years. How many 100,000 year periods have there been in the past 10 million years? A hundred. Reptilian dinosaur fossils are common in Alaska, either redefining dinosaurs as non-reptilian or proving tropical environments in the Arctic. 

They have changed that about Dinosaurs. They now know they were feathered and better adapted for the cold. Not that it was as cold back then as it was today. But technically any bird that can withstand the Arctic now, Dino’s could as well. Minus the horrific calorie intake of such a large body.

[starchunk]

1 hour ago, norseman said:

What are the better suited inhabitants all ready there?

 

Proto humans hunting in groups, big cats, short faced bear.... whatever the hyena like critter that was around in that was called, to think of a few. ANy could have out competed or predated giganto if it were in a new environment

 

1 hour ago, Huntster said:

 

.......it would remain an Orang.

 

But not only did it not, it never was an orang. The theory clearly states that Giganto and orangs diverged from a common ancestor 10-12 million years ago. Lucy, an Australopithecine, was dated back just 3.2 million years, and look at how much evolution occurred since Lucy walked the Earth.

 

Beringia has been exposed as a grassy steppe and boreal forest several to a dozen times in just the past 100,000 years. How many 100,000 year periods have there been in the past 10 million years? A hundred. Reptilian dinosaur fossils are common in Alaska, either redefining dinosaurs as non-reptilian or proving tropical environments in the Arctic. 

 

Reptilian dinosaurs aren't relevant since they were hardly from the same time period

Edited May 21, 2020 by starchunk

[norseman]

2 minutes ago, starchunk said:

 

Proto humans hunting in groups, big cats, short faced bear.... whatever the hyena like critter that was around in that was called, to think of a few. ANy could have out competed or predated giganto if it were in a new environment

You do realize that Homo Erectus was in China? And Tigers and Bears? North America would not pose any more of a challenge than China was 200,000 years ago. It just comes down to walking there. But that could be done slowly over generations. But Bipedalism certainly has a lot of advantages.... IF it was bipedal.

 

But I don’t think many things messed with a Apeman the size of a polar bear....

[Huntster]

4 minutes ago, starchunk said:

Proto humans hunting in groups, big cats, short faced bear.... whatever the hyena like critter that was around in that was called, to think of a few. ANy could have out competed or predated giganto if it were in a new environment........

 

There is nothing in the Giganto fossils that can ascertain their hunting/gathering tactics. Indeed, an almost universal trait of primates is social grouping, at least into family units. 

 

........Reptilian dinosaurs aren't relevant since they were hardly from the same time period

 

I raised the point to illustrate that the Arctic environment has been much warmer many, many times over the millions of previous years. Indeed, even today, political actors are using Arctic warming as a propaganda tool. That point shows that Asian/American migration, in both directions, by virtually any potential creature, and going back millions of years, was not only possible but is a scientifically recognized phenomenon.

[norseman]

7 minutes ago, Huntster said:

 

There is nothing in the Giganto fossils that can ascertain their hunting/gathering tactics. Indeed, an almost universal trait of primates is social grouping, at least into family units. 

 

 

 

 

I raised the point to illustrate that the Arctic environment has been much warmer many, many times over the millions of previous years. Indeed, even today, political actors are using Arctic warming as a propaganda tool. That point shows that Asian/American migration, in both directions, by virtually any potential creature, and going back millions of years, was not only possible but is a scientifically recognized phenomenon.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothofagus_moorei

[Huntster]

7 minutes ago, norseman said:

........But I don’t think many things messed with a Apeman the size of a polar bear....

 

A bear the size of your Kenworth truck tractor might........

 

I ran across this yesterday. I've had personal interactions with martens, which are much larger than mink. These martens were not afraid of me........

 

 

[norseman]

13 minutes ago, Huntster said:

 

A bear the size of your Kenworth truck tractor might........

 

I ran across this yesterday. I've had personal interactions with martens, which are much larger than mink. These martens were not afraid of me........

 

 

they are related to badgers and wolverines. Nasty family. Grizzly bears are scared of them!

[SWWASAS]

What I find interesting and may have bearing on the question of BF is that both horses and camels originated on North America and migrated to Eurasia.    There was a huge camel whose fossils have been found very near the artic circle in Canada that apparently was very adapted to the cold arctic.       The last native NA horse disappeared from the fossil record only 8000 to 10,000 years ago only to be reintroduced back into NA in the 1600s by the Spanish.     Could it be that BF had unknown origins in the Americas?     There are certainly monkeys in South America who came from someplace and that could have evolved.     It just seems to me that the origin and ancestral record of BF is so hard to imagine that it might be even stranger than we have imagined.