Another blogger's case against the existence of a North American ape, claims some people believe Bigfoot is a giant sloth

The Bering Land Bridge (Beringia)
The Bering Sea, Bering Strait and Beringia (a term to describe an area ranging from the Kolyma River in the Russian far east to the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories of Canada) was named for Vitus Bering, a Danish explorer for a Russian czar in the 18th Century.

Last month, a blogger who writes on paranormal and the supernatural, Andrew Kincaid wrote an interesting article about whether or not it was possible for apes to have migrated with humans into North America via the Bering Land Bridge. This is one of two well-balanced articles he wrote on the subject of Bigfoot. His first article focused on the myth / legend, and the second focused on the science.

Andrew is skeptical about the claims made by some Bigfoot researchers that gigantopithecus could have crossed the the Bering Land Bridge during the Ice Age. "Fossil evidence suggests that gigantopithecus went extinct one hundred thousand years ago, well before the Ice Age that revealed the Bering Land Bridge," he wrote.

To understand where this author is coming from, here's what he wrote in a reply to a reader's comment regarding his article:

I think that it could be conceivable for a large ape species hitherto unknown to science to be found in Asia, and possibly even Africa. There are a lot of unknown and uncharted areas on those continents, and they have a history of apes inhabiting them. The Americas have no natural history of ape inhabitants, besides humans of course, which isn’t to say that none will ever be found. It does say that we can’t form a hypothesis on wishful thinking, which is what I feel Bigfoot enthusiasts try to do. No evidence of American apes currently, so no feasible hypothesis about them can be made.

Oh and there is an interesting hypothesis a very minor minority in the Bigfoot community believe, which I didn’t see much about in any of the sources I looked at. Some claim Bigfoot isn’t an ape at all, but is rather a remnant population of giant sloths. Sounds silly, and it largely is because we would definitely have noticed such creatures wandering around, but at the very least there is good fossil evidence that giant sloths did exist on this continent!

- Andrew Kincaid

The second article focusing on the science part of the legend was the most interesting to us:

Bigfoot Part 2 – The Science
October 14, 2011 by Andrew

On Monday, we looked at some of the folklore surrounding the Bigfoot phenomena, and a speculative scientific hypothesis that could potentially explain the origins of the sightings. By way of recap, the hypothesis states that a giant fossil ape that lived in Asia around 10000 years ago migrated with humans into North America via the Bering Land Bridge. This ape, gigantopithecus, would live on to become the Bigfoot of legend. The hypothesis also states that a breeding population of these apes lives in the forests of North America, especially in the Pacific Northwest and Canada, where it subsists on an omnivorous diet. It remains unseen by maintaining a relatively small population and living a nomadic lifestyle, melting into the vast forests of the region.

It all sounds very reasonable and scientific. That’s fine, but when it comes to science you have to take things one step further – you have to find data that supports your claims. Does the gigantopithecus hypothesis hold water in light of scientific evidence? The answer, which is going to vindicate some and irritate others, can be summed up in one word: no.

There are a variety of problems with the gigantopithecus hypothesis, but there was one glaring issue that blows it out of the water from the get go: fossil evidence suggests that gigantopithecus went extinct one hundred thousand years ago, well before the Ice Age that revealed the Bering Land Bridge. If the big ape was extinct by the time the crossing happened, it obviously wasn’t going to be able to migrate into North America.

However, there are more problems with the hypothesis than that. These problems lay in what we know of gigantopithecus’ biology, inferred from fossil evidence. While this evidence doesn’t support the modern Bigfoot legends, what it does do is give us a glimpse into a fascinating world where our ancestors lived side by side with giants, which to me at least is much more fascinating than the Bigfoot folklore.

Gigantopithecus lived from one million to one hundred thousand years ago in and around China, India, and Vietnam (no evidence of the animal has been found in North America, another blow to the Bigfoot hypothesis). A full skeleton has never been found, so all we know about the animal has been inferred from jaw and tooth fragments. That may not sound like we know much, but look at it this way: jaws and teeth are some of the body parts most important to an animals survival. One could even argue that, to some extent at least, the entire body plan is built around the jaws and teeth, considering those are essential to taking in nutrients that support life. So, much can be inferred from what might appear to be only a few fragments.

There are three known species: Gigantopithecus blackii, Gigantopithecus bilaspurensis, and Gigantopithecus giganteus. The largest of the three, blackii, was believed to stand about ten feet tall (3 meters) and weigh twelve hundred pounds (540 kilograms). Gigantopithecus was thought to be a quadruped, meaning that it walked on its knuckles like a modern gorilla (although it should be noted that it is more closely related to orangutans than gorillas), although there are some in the Bigfoot research community who argue that, due to the width of the jaw, that could indicate that the ape stood upright. Most biologists dismiss this notion though, as the massive weight of the creature would have caused it a ton of strain on its back, ankles, and knees (a fact most of us comparatively sleight humans can attest to!) and claim that it would be more likely to have been a quadruped, where its weight would be more evenly distributed. We won’t know for certain of course until an entire skeleton is found, of course, but we should note that bipedalism as a primary form of locomotion is fairly rare in nature so it isn’t likely that there would be an exception to that rule here.

Gigantopithecus is thought to have lived on bamboo and fruit, judging by where it was found and the amount of cavities in recovered tooth fragments. Probably, since it was so plentiful, bamboo was the primary food source and fruit the secondary. There is some evidence that they may have been at least partially carnivorous, as most apes are.

Finally, there is evidence of a large amount of sexual dimorphism. That means that one sex was bigger than the other – in this case the males, who were about twice the size of females. This could be for a variety of reasons, depending on the animal’s life history. It could be that there was a large amount of competition among males for mates. Bigger males would get more mates, so nature would select for bigger body sizes for males. It could also be that there wasn’t competition among males, but rather that males acted as protectors in a hostile environment and thus grew huge to fill that role. A third possibility is related to the first, but subtly different. Females, for whatever reason, could have preferred to mate with bigger males and thus selected for bigger male body sizes.

Whatever caused the huge body size, it’s likely that when Gigantopithecus was fully grown it had no natural predators. The thing was as big as a house…what in their right mind would mess with that? Most predation probably occurred on members of the community (they likely lived in family groups like orangutans) were sick or when they were juveniles.

So here we have a gigantic ape with no known predators. How did the thing go extinct? There were a variety of factors likely behind the beast’s decline. Our ancestors, both modern humans and homo erectus, were at least partially responsible. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, because we have a tendency to wipe out just about any species we come into contact with. It’s possible that giant pandas and other bamboo feeders competed with Gigantopithecus for food, and could have lead to their decline. There is rarely one single cause of an extinction, and I think that until we know more about the ape we won’t know exactly what killed it off.

There are some things we know with as much certainty as science can give us though. One is that Gigantopithecus never lived in North America. There is no fossil evidence to support the claim that the ape ever came into the Americas, and indeed there is no fossil evidence at all that ANY ape other than humans has lived in the Americas. The second is that the ape may well have been similar in bodily proportions to the Bigfoot of folklore, but it is highly unlikely that it walked on two legs. Third, Gigantopithecus went extinct well before any large scale migrations from Asia to the Americas were possible, so even if it did fit the bill of Bigfoot there would have been no way for it to come to the Americas.

So…no Bigfoot. Or rather, no reliable scientific evidence to support the existence of Bigfoot. That hasn’t stopped the widespread sightings or belief in the creature though…

You can read the first part of Andrew's article on Bigfoot by clicking here.

[via authorandrewkincaid.com]