Table of Contents
Bears As Bigfoot, Extinct Monster Bears
Living Ground Sloths? Ground Sloths in Antartica. Cryptozoology in the Wall Street Journal.
Unknown Bears and Odd Bear Behavior
Search For A Living Ground Sloth
More On The New Vietnamese Animals.
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I've been skimming through a book called THE GREAT BEAR ALMANAC by Gary Brown (ISBN 1-55821-210-8). It is primarily about the evolution, habits, etc. of the various bears, but it has several things in it that relate to this topic. First, it directly addresses the question of whether or not Bigfoot and Yeti sightings are actually bears. It does a pro and con summary, but doesn't come to a conclusion, though from the discussion I suspect that the author thinks that at least some of those sightings are of bears. I suspect that he is right, though that may or may not be the whole explanation. One of the things he points out is that one bear, the Asiatic Black Bear, sometimes walks on its hind legs for up to a quarter mile. I could easily see that starting some Yeti rumors.
The book also talks about fossil bears. There is one fossil bear in particular that really stands out. Up until about 10-15,000 years ago in North America there was a bear with the scientific name Arctodus simus. The author calls it the giant short-faced bear. He calls it "the largest carnivorous land mammal ever." It stood over 5 feet tall at the shoulders and was over 11 feet tall when it stood on its hind legs, which means that it could have reared up and looked down through a regulation 10 foot high basketball rim. It would have weighed 1500-1800 pounds in the spring and over a ton in the fall. Add in the fact that it was a long-legged animal, probably faster than any existing bear and you are talking a really formidable animal. If Bigfoot really existed, and came into contact with this bear, that would have been quite a sight.
I got to thinking as I was reading about the fossil bears, and I realized that in some ways the survival of one of those supposedly extinct bears could explain at least some of the Bigfoot sightings, and would actually be more likely than the "giant nocturnal primate" explanation. For one thing we know that the bears actually lived in North America at one time. We have a fossil record. Also, according to the book, bears often adopt nocturnal habits when they are close to man. They swim well of course. I suspect that if a dwarfed form of the short-faced bear survived somewhere it could be mistaken for a large primate, probably more so than most bears because it would be enough different that people would not automatically see it as a bear. It had a short, broad snout, eyes set "far forward". It had a short body and long legs. The front and hind feet"turned forward, with all surfaces of the feet touching the ground."
There is a lot more in the book but I don't know how much I can paraphrase and quote without going beyond fair use of copyright material. It is a fascinating book, at least to me. Well worth the purchase, or at least the trip to the library.
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Scientific American of all magazines had a brief article on the possible survival of a small (approximately man-sized) ground sloth in Brazil in their latest issue. No new evidence, but an official at one of the major museums down there apparently believes that there is a real chance of one of the species surviving until very recently if not to the present day. As kind of an aside, the article mentions that a soon-to-be-published article describes ground sloth fossils from Antarctica. They are gradually finding more and more fossil mammals and birds from Antarctica, and it seems to be looking more and more like Antarctica was a kind of a cold-country version of South America in terms of animal life before it froze over.
You know, cryptozoology pops up in the oddest places if you look for it. I was going through some old clippings a while back (one of my curses--I save newspaper clippings) and came across two cryptozoology-type articles from the Wall Street Journal. One was on Bigfoot hunting in Ohio or Indiana or some unlikely place. The other on was on a group that was hunting for the Tasmanian Wolf. Neither article really played for cheap laughs, though they weren't terribly in-depth.
My take on the chances of finding new species is that there are some good scientifically
interesting candidates out there, but they aren't the ones that generally get the most publicity.
Bigfoot and Nessie sell newspapers-- especially some kinds of newspapers. A new type of bear or
pig or marsupial or goat don't generate much excitement outside of the scientific community.
Yeah, a new species of ape would be interesting to find, as would a living dinosaur, but finding
something spectacular and new in North America or Europe has to rate as very unlikely, whereas
the chances of finding something scientifically interesting in Australia or South America or Asia is
much higher, simply because there are more areas there that haven't been gone over for years by
generations of graduate students.
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Several miscellaneous things: First, I've somehow gotten into reading up on bears, (as anyone reading my last couple of messages may have noticed), and I keep running into mentions of possible unknown or recently extinct species. These include a recently extinct (100-200 years ago) sun bear species in Ceylon, a couple of tropical Asian forms that may have contributed to Bigfoot-style stories over there, and a South American form that was collected by a reputable zoologist, who then proceeded to lose the specimens on his way out when a boat capsized.
Second, anyone that tells you that bears don't do X behavior is probably wrong. Bears are enormously variable in looks and behavior. There are also a lot of things that people know about bears that just aren't true. For example: contrary to the popular belief, at least some bears appear to have excellent eyesight. One author mentioned that he had been watching a group of bears around a park for a couple of days from his car. He was something like 200 feet away from them and they were ignoring him, but then a fly landed on his finger and he flipped it off. Every bear immediately looked at him. At least some species are capable of picking up a single grain of rice between two claws, and in captivity at least one sun bear has been known to turn a key with its claws in order to open a door. Some species will walk on their hind legs for up to 1/4 mile.
Now this is all relevant to the topic because a bear acting in unusual ways is a very good potential source of Bigfoot stories.
Finally, I wasn't totally serious when I suggested that surviving Short-faced bears might be the source of a lot of the Bigfoot stories. That isn't impossible, but I do consider it unlikely. The interesting thing about it though is that unlikely as it is that a large supposedly extinct bear is still running around North America, that is still much more likely than a giant ape running around. There is fossil evidence that the bear was quite common in North America until about 10-15,000 years ago, which means they probably met the first Indians. If their looks or markings or some behavior made them easy to mistake for a Bigfoot, that would explain a lot. Any sighting that was from a distance or at the proper angle would be a Bigfoot sighting. Any time one got shot or hit by a car or went down on all fours or got in a position where the viewer focused on its paws, it would be a bear. Find remains, and unless you happen to be a real expert on fossil bears all you see is a bear carcass or a bear tooth or whatever. In other words a supposedly extinct bear could hide in plain sight. Bigfoot hunters would discard stories that contained a bearish element. People that saw the thing and knew darn well that it was like no bear that they had ever seen would tend to emphasize the unbearlike qualities, and given human nature, might even subconsciously fill in the characteristics that they would expect to see in a Bigfoot. To some extent people see what they expect to see, and the two options in North America for animals even remotely shaped like a Bigfoot are bears and Bigfoot. Most people aren't even aware of the extinct bears, and the few that do are generally pretty sure that those bears are extinct. So, if you see something that doesn't look or act like any bear that you've ever seen or heard of, and you have heard of Bigfoot, well the brain can easily fill in the details.
Again, I don't think that is really going on, but I would give it a higher probability than Bigfoot.
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Well, we have a new candidate or two for "the real animal(s) behind the Yeti/Bigfoot stories.
Today's New York Times says that teeth from two previously unknown species of Great Ape were found in a cave in Vietnam, along with teeth from Orangutans, Gigantopithecus, and Homo erectus (a primitive type of man). Estimated age: 250,000 years.
One of the apes appears to be related to the Orangutan, but is a separate species. The other one is "A completely different and unknown genus of some large Hominoid."
This find is important scientifically because it shows that apes were diverse much more recently than most scientist thought. There may be more coming out of this because the people that studied these teeth are going back to arrange a more thorough excavation of the cave later this month.
To put this in perspective: There are 3 genera and 4 species of living Great Ape. As far as I know, up until now there has only been one extinct ape genera and species known from the last million years. Now we have 2 new species and 1 new genera to speculate about--two new branches to our family tree.
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A search for surviving South American large Ground Sloths by some reputable and fairly big-name science types has made it into the New York Times twice in the last two weeks, once in their weekly Science section and once in a Brief blurb on their editorial page.
There were a few Crypto things in the media recently. The Chicago Trib did an editorial about the confession of fraud relating to the Loch Ness Monster. BBC Wildlife had an article that said some recent studies of small primates called Bushbabies indicate that instead of 6 species of Bushbabies there are at least 16, and probably several more. There was also an article about the discovery of a new species and genus of bird in Africa. The article mentions that on average 3-4 new bird species are discovered every year, most of them in South America. The same magazine mentions that at least one brown bear seems to have taken up residence in England, for the first time in 7 centuries. There is also an article that points to evidence that there may be a second species of coelacanth to be discovered--this one off the coast of Mexico.
The BBC Wildlife article about the Brown Bear in England also mentions in passing that a kangaroos and wallabies have established themselves in England. That reminded me that I read a passing reference to what appears to have been the discovery of a large species of Tree Kangaroo in New Guinea 5 or 10 years ago. There are apparently only about 12 of these animals still alive. The same source mentions that fossils of a very large (6 foot--over 100 pounds) Tree Kangaroo have been found in New Guinea.
New Guinea is a prime source for new species. They were still finding new groups of people with no previous contact with the West until after WW II, and the fossil record is just starting to get established. Large animals in New Guinea are essentially all marsupials, with the Tree Kangaroos being the most spectacular ones, but I suspect that there could still be some interesting things coming out of there.
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The New York Times Science Section yesterday said that another large new mammal species has
been identified in Vietnam. This one is a new species of deer that probably weighs around 100
pounds. This is the second new species from that same area in the last year or two, and the article
mentions in passing that there is a reasonably strong possibility of more new species.
This isn't quite a "Lost World" type scenario, but I think that it may be making Cryptozoology a
little more respectable in the mainstream scientific community.
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New York Times yesterday had an article that said that the scientific community now has live specimens of both of the new species that have been found in Vietnam in the last year or so. They just found a young of the strange ox-like creature not long ago. The large deer species that they just found bones and skin of for the first time last year has also now showed up as a live specimen. The article also mentioned that they are expecting to find more new species in the area, but it didn't get specific on what types of animals those might be except that one might be a rather unique type of snake.
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The New York Times had an article about a new Kangaroo species in it's science section today.
== It is a Tree Kangaroo.
== It lives in the Indonesian half of New Guinea.
== It is about the size of a medium-sized dog.
== As Tree Kangaroos go this one is a poor climber and spends a relatively large percentage of its
time on the ground.
== It has markings sort of like a giant panda.
== It has a truly strange reaction to danger. It raises its front legs in the air which exposes a large
white batch, and gives out a shrill whistle. That could explain why it is rare.
The Tree Kangaroos are a truly remarkable bunch of animals. In Northern Australia and New Guinea a group of several species of small kangaroos have evolved from your typical kangaroo that hops around on the ground and eats grass into something that hops around from tree to tree and eats leaves. They are really pretty good at getting around in trees and can jump down from amazingly high in a tree without suffering any damage. There may be at least one more large species of tree kangaroo that hasn't been officially recognized. There are also fossils of a really big species--over 100 pounds if my memory is working correctly.
New Guinea has a lot of potential for new small and medium-sized animal discoveries. There is a lot of very poorly explored territory and not too much of a fossil record.
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