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Indian Yeti / Barmanu

I've a lot of sympathy with the work undertaken by the CFZ -and I genuinely wish them well, but some of that video is dodgy - in content and tone.

One part stood out initially.

Claim:
CFZ said:
There's no convincing reason why Gigantopithecus should be extinct.[...] It's highly likely that Gigantopithecus, or something very like it, still survives today in the remoter areas of Asia.

Proof?
1) A number of species which existed contemporaneously with Gigantopithecus survive to this day. - Yes, but these creatures (Rhinos, Elephants, Tigers, Tapirs, Panda), are very different and may have survived for hugely different reasons.

2) They are said to have been driven to extinction by Homo Erectus, but they were bigger, tougher and may have been armed! - Natural selection isn't a Battle Royale. If this were the case, homo sapiens would never have reached the ascendancy it enjoys today. Enormously powerful creatures have lost out - countless times - to tiny ones. Intelligent creatures have died where the less intelligent have survived and vice versa. Might absolutely does not equal survival. It's all about finding a niche.

I'm also a little suspicious of an argument whereby we're invited to believe in the continued survival of a creature which has not been reliably documented in the modern world just because we can't find a good reason why it shouldn't exist. We should be looking for evidence of existence (which, to be fair, you are), not asking for (near impossible) evidence of extinction. Proving a negative is tricky work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

A little Googling brings me this:

Ciochon (et al. 1990) propose three factors as being potentially related to the extinction of Gigantopithecus blacki and all are interrelated: dependence on bamboo, the giant panda, and Homo erectus. Bamboo is prone to periodic die offs, the exact reason for which is unknown. The giant panda was contemprous with Gigantopithecus blacki and may have been in competition with it for the same food source. The final straw, however, may have been the introduction of Homo erectus into the region. All three creatures, panda, Giganto, and Homo, may have been fond of the sprouts of the bamboo as a food source (as are living pandas), which means that plants would have been consumed before they had a chance to reach maturity and reproduce. Further, Homo erectus may have been using bamboo for tools. In archaeology it was traditionally assumed that Asia was a cultural backwater during the stone age due to its lack of sophisticated stone tool kits like those found in Europe, but this attitude is changing as consideration is given to the wide variety of uses of bamboo, not only in theory, but as witnessed in practice in Asia through historical times into the present. Likewise, there is much debate around Homo erectus' proclivity for hunting, but another possible factor in the extinction of Gigantopithecus blacki is that it may have been hunted. Ciochon (et al., 1990) believes that it was likely a combination of factors, with the entry of Homo erectus into Gigantopithecus' range upsetting an already delicate balance. No one factor was likely absolute. For example, if Homo erectus had monopolized the fruit supply it would have left Gigantopithecus blacki with no back up when a periodic bamboo die off occurred. This coupled with competition from the giant panda and sporadic hunting could have been enough to reduce breeding populations of Gigantopithecus below viable levels. (Ciochon et al., 1990)

http://www.wynja.com/arch/gigantopithecus.html

- This account is certainly more nuanced and credible.

If this species survives, the best proof is to find it, not to adduce speculative arguments that its existence is theoretically possible.

More seriously, the Anglo-centric narration lends nothing to the argument and tone. Indeed, it's just plain embarrassing to interlard a piece of zoology with so many suggestions of your own distance from the culture you are encountering. It's cringe-worthy to bring up the grammar of road signs, your dislike of the western shopping centre and the marketability of Indian fruit in the West. One is minded of embarrassing uncles making crass comments to the natives. I kept on expecting to hear something about 'respecting their honest way of life'. Indian history (and prehistory) is also long and varied enough that we can suffer without the inevitable references to Kipling and the Raj - they even managed to drag in Tarzan and hold forth on 'the real India' against the homogenisation of globalisation; cliches all. A real journey should be a vacation from yourself as well as your home.

Sorry to be a little negative. This video needs a lot of editing and tightening up before anyone outside of a tiny niche would pay it any attention.
 
I personaly can't concive of Homo errectus pushing Gigantopitheus into extinction, mondern man perhapes but not errectus. I'm sceptical of alot of prehistoric mega fauna extinctions being blamed on humans.
We know Gigantopithecus fed on fruit as well as bamboo, it also probobly ate leaves and other vegitation so unlike pandas it would not have been vunerable to bamboo die off.
If the yeti / mande barung is not Gigantopithecusthen it must be something very like it. No other known ape fits the bill in size. Yes we only have teeth and jaws but if it had a body more like the mondern apes these would have been vastly oversized.
I'd love to find hard evidence but with only two weeksin the fieldthe odds are stacked against you. If i ever get the money i will be spending months or years in the field looking for cryptids. Just look how long it took them to film snow leopards in the wild.
I love Kipling and think he is one of our greatest writers. GHe is out of fastion due to the bleatings of the pc bregade, for who i have no time. I make no appologies for Kipling references.
 
How good a match is gigantopithecus for descriptions of the Yeti though? I thought the interpretation of it as a biped was considered unlikely these days.
 
We only have teeth and jaws (i've allways thought that a good paleontological project wuld be to try and uncover more of this animal). However the lower jaw shws alot of flaring, it's wide at the back, unlike a gorilla. This sugesstes that the neck came straight down under the head much like a human neck does (think of the stick on a toffee apple or lolly) this heavily implies it was a biped.
 
I knew about that but I thought that wasn't a popular interpretation any more.
I thought that the question about strain and wear on the joints of a biped that size had outweighed the argument about the width at the back of the mandible.

I've generally got this against giant bipedal apes. It would certainly be a serious problem in a human.

But then I can't get hold of any decent articles on the subject, this is what I get; ( from Wikipedia)

Being so large, it is possible that Gigantopithecus had few or no enemies when fully grown. However, younger, weak or injured individuals may have been vulnerable to predation by tigers, pythons, crocodiles, Dinofelis, hyenas, bears, and Homo erectus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantopithecus

It wasn't homo erectus that did it, it was pythons.
 
oldrover said:
..It wasn't homo erectus that did it, it was pythons.
Is anyone looking for Spiny Norman while they're at it?

I've got to admit I've always been wary of the relict Gigantopithecus theory (perhaps an evolved descendant, which may have radically different features, could be a contender?)

That said it could well be a hitherto undiscovered species entirely. As we've said any number of times on here, just because someone in a white coat in a Western University hasn't seen something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Good luck to the CFZ. However premature some conclusions, at least they're giving it a go and their heart's in the right place.
 
Cheers guys, an evolved form or a new species is certainly a posibility.
Big crocodiles, brown bears,elephants and rhino are probobly the only things adults had to wory about. Tigers or pythons may have taken young.
There were bipeds much bigger than Gigantopithecus, just look at some of the meat eating dinosaurs.
 
There were bipeds much bigger than Gigantopithecus, just look at some of the meat eating dinosaurs.

There certainly were, but you are aware that this has been used as an argument for Gigantopithecus being a quadruped.

The best articles I've found have said that it isn't possible to say one way or the other, but they're quite out of date.

Type in Gigantopithecus and most of the results are creationists or cryptozoology sites. No original research. I'm not saying that cryptozoologists don't do original research, just that you've got to wary what you read on the internet.

I'm certainly not having a go at cryptozoology, especially not the type done by the CFZ, if I'd found a link to research of theirs I'd read it the same way as any other qualified opinion.
 
Cheers Oldrover
I just think most scientists, being conservative by nature are thinking inside of the box. Just because modern apes are knuckle walkers it dosn't nessicarily follow that all prehistoric (or moder unknown apes) are.
One thing i'd really like to see is a concerted effort to find more Gigantopithecus remains. If it was a kncukle walker then we can illiminate it from thesuspecys (unless it evceoved bipedalism in the last 300,000 yesrs).
Some animals were knowm only from fragementory remains for years. Take the dinosaur Deinocheirus. It was known only from its arms and hands untill last year. Now much more of this creature has emerged and it turns out to have been a huge ornithimimid but with a weirdly shaped head that makes it look as if it was, of all things, a filter feeder! The info has yet to be published.
I'm sure a concerted effor could turn up more Gigantopithecus fossils.
 
One of the articles which I read said that researchers believed they'd found a piece of skeleton, I read it this morning but I've forgotten which bone it was all ready, I think it was a portion of leg bone though. But the articles seemed to be from the seventies. So looks like they didn't.

I just think most scientists, being conservative by nature are thinking inside of the box. Just because modern apes are knuckle walkers it dosn't nessicarily follow that all prehistoric (or moder unknown apes) are.

That's definitely not the tone I picked up from what I read, but as I said I think going by the reference list the articles were about 40 years old. How regularly are articles on subjects like this published?

Either way I think it's premature to speculate among fossil species which one fits the bill of the Yeti etc, there must be quite a few even recent species that haven't, and may well never, be discovered in fossil form.
 
"there must be quite a few even recent species that haven't, and may well never, be discovered in fossil form"

That's very true, the fossil record does not preserve everything. There, to y knowlage, no fossil goriillas.
 
I've just been reading a book by geneticist Steven Jones, who makes it very clear that the vast majority of creatures that have ever lived never formed fossils. And we only ever find a tiny fraction of the fossils that were formed. (Causing critics of evolution to point to the lack of 'intermediate' fossils as a major drawback. But evolution nowadays is demonstrated by genetic links rather than by fossils alone.)
 
theyithian said:
Proof?
1) A number of species which existed contemporaneously with Gigantopithecus survive to this day. - Yes, but these creatures (Rhinos, Elephants, Tigers, Tapirs, Panda), are very different and may have survived for hugely different reasons.

To which I would add : and we know of their existence. Cryptozoology always comes up against this obstacle : how could a big animal remain hidden to this day. Especially in an area that is so well known, and quite populated.
 
The Garo Hills are amoungst the less populated and most poorly explored part of India.
 
Yes but you still come back to the same problem. If, and I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't, take eyewitness accounts as evidence then your left with this as a worldwide phenomena. And for a flesh and blood creature your left with a massive problem, that in 2011 when there's no doubt that human impact everywhere is pretty extreme, there's no body.

In the past you've said that there are in many places strong taboos against harming these animals, but for that to work on a worldwide scale you'd need an explanation that applies to pretty much every culture on earth.

Also your stuck with instances like New Zealand, Guadalcanal and Australia, where there's no chance of there being an animal there that fits the description.

I'm not just trying to be negative, but as far as I can see this is a serious problem.
 
oldrover said:
..Also your stuck with instances like New Zealand, Guadalcanal and Australia, where there's no chance of there being an animal there that fits the description.
That's the bone of contention though - why is there no chance of such an animal being there? They're all environments that can easily support diverse, large fauna, and all are either sparsely or to all intents and purposes uninhabited: and the sheer volume of reports, often as not by people who know what they're looking at, surely indicate that there is something there?

As ever, with all Fort things, I'm by no means saying that all sightings are cryptids (or ghosts, or genuinely unidentified aerial thingies) - but even if only one in a thousand is inexplicable by current scientific paradigms, we're still obliged to investigate that one. And while Forteans tend to get exasperated by not only outright credulity but also the disdain of mainstream scientists (nb - not science itself) frankly it's a bit patronising to discount reliable anecdotal evidence, especially when consistent, credible and with a century plus of provenance.

I've been studying Fort stuff for decades, and have a fairly well-developed sense of fake vs sincere - and Sasquatch / Yeti / Yowie / Barmanu etc etc, as a general principle, by and large feel right to me. I really think there's something there.
 
For me the Sasquatch has almost always felt as wrong as it’s possible to be, the Yeti, Yeren etc on the other hand I was always convinced of until recently. I wasn’t happy letting go of them either.

That's the bone of contention though - why is there no chance of such an animal being there?

Because there’s no way they could ever have reached Australia let alone New Zealand. There are terrestrial placentals in Australia not introduced by humans but none are bigger than a rat. It was possible for them to reach there because they are small enough to raft across on vegetation, and numerous enough in their original territory for this to lead to them having a chance to establish themselves in Australia by this method. Australia has never been connected to mainland Asia if it had been there would be far more evidence of interchange than that. There is evidence of more interchange further North West around the Wallace line, but in mainland Australia and New Guinea the fauna is distinct.

Not even rats reached New Zealand though before the Maori introduced them.

It’s been said that the Yowie could be a marsupial the thing is though the descriptions are the same as everywhere else. Even if there was a marsupial to fit the bill, there’s another problem, that’s the coincidence that two animals isolated for so long have evolved not only to be physically identical but share the same uncanny ability to be huge, be reported around human settlements, maintain adequate numbers to be both viable and be widespread enough to generate sightings in all parts of Australia, including Tasmania, except for the Capitol Territory and still never be either, shot, captured or photographed.

Even if you get over that, you’ve still got to account for New Zealand, where the only known indigenous terrestrial mammal lived sixteen million years ago, and is too isolated to be reached by any other land animal than humans.

Of course I’m not saying that there’s nothing there to investigate just that at least for me the abundant evidence of the ecology south east of the Lydekker line is strong enough to make the current paradigm so sound that it’s best to look for the answers outside of the physical. I’ve got my own opinion of what’s going on but that’s just me.

I know this thread is about India but for me the Yowie etc has a direct bearing on it, because as you say;

the sheer volume of reports, often as not by people who know what they're looking at, surely indicate that there is something there?

When you know it can’t be what they’re reporting in one instance, then I think that by extension you have to question the reports even from areas where it is feasible they could exist, especially because of the huge amount of negative evidence. After all what’s being proposed is that what would be the world’s most widely distributed large mammal ever, and one which is still alive across every continent today, despite the huge impact we've had, has never been captured ever. How could that be?

Incidentally I'm not kidding myself that I know for sure, outside of Australia, just that it's something that really needs to be taken into account.
 
I have spoken to people who have seen theses things in Sumatra, India and Russia and they don't seem to have a reason to lie. Often they seem amazed that people from the outside world are interested in what is just another animal to them. I recall talking to one old woman in Russia who had sen an almasty shortly after WWII in Kazakhstan. She said 'why are you interested in such a crazy topic?' When i was looking for the deathworm (not a mystery ape but a cryptid none the less) the nomads and villagers in the Gobi were amazed that western scientists would be intrested in searching for a creature that they knew and feared.
Also i find it hard to belive that people who have lived in these areas all their lives are mistaking known animals for something stranger. It allways amazes me that armchair scientist who have never been to the places in question can say that local people are mistaking bears or gibbons or whatever. Our guide in Sumata, Sahar had lived in the jungle for 14 years. He has seen bears, monkeys, tiger, gibbons and the orang-pendek. He has yet to see a Sumatran rhino and we know they exist!
 
I've never favored mistaking bears etc as an explanation particularly, but the two examples you use are good examples of cryptids both of which I personally think are very plausible. Especially the Death Worm, which I think is probably not my favourite in terms of appeal, but definitely my favourite in terms of the odds for it's existence. I'b be very, very surprised if it didn't.

The Orang Pendek I also think is quite likely not so much because of whose seen it, although I do like the sightings, but because it's a specific animal in a specific environment. Also it's an ape, bipedal but not the generic man beast reported from everywhere else. I don't see the argument I've brought up applies to it.

I'm not saying that I'm right about what does or doesn't exist, but I do really think that the problem I've referred to is a legitimate one.
 
By the way if you get time I'd be interested to hear, here or on another thread, what you make out from the Australian sightings Lordmongrove.
 
oldrover said:
Also your stuck with instances like New Zealand, Guadalcanal and Australia, where there's no chance of there being an animal there that fits the description.
oldrover -- not wanting to "derail" / complicate things; but IIRC you've mentioned elsewhere too, in recent months (I looked for the reference, but couldn't find it) "mysterious big hairies" reported from Guadalcanal. Would you be willing to furnish more detail about this? I've seen a couple of very brief, unspecific mentions of supposed "giants" in the Solomon Islands -- would be most interested to hear anything more "chapter-and-verse".
 
There is a book on the 'giants' and UFOs of the Soloman Islands by a guy called Marius Boirayon. I goit a review copy. It reads like a z grade b movie plot and is tottaly unbelivable. He says there are 25 foot tall hominids in the Solomans and that they can talk and use fire as well as interbreed with humans.

http://www.amazon.com/Solomon-Islands-M ... oologi-20/

The guy also has a website.
http://www.thewatcherfiles.com/giants/s ... giants.htm

I'd actually like to go to the Solomans in search of giant Indo-Pacific crocodiles. but this shite damages proper research.
 
As for yowies, that's a real problem. If you've read Tony Healy and Paul Cropper's book on them you will know just how far back they go.
Once sighting was by George Paras who is tnow he head ranger of the Latrobe University Wildlife Reserve. Another was by Bill O'Chee who became a senator. Confessing to seeing a yowie, along with loads of other kids and their teach could have really damaged his career.
Something is going on here, people are seeing something odd. My friend Darren Naish descussed this on his Tetrapod Zoology site. He was far from happy with the idea of the yowie but admited that something strange was going on.
May be it is some kind of hominid that rafted to Australia when the coast was closer to Indonesia 20,000 years ago but the modern sightings seem to portray a creature much like the almasty with only primative tool use and no fire. I have never been convinced by the 'devolution' idea.
I don't think yowies are figments of the imagination but from a zoograhical perspectve they are totally baffling. Give me half a chance and i'd go looking for the buggers though!
 
I'd actually like to go to the Solomans in search of giant Indo-Pacific crocodiles.

Please let us know about these.

Amyasleigh you’re not derailing or complicating anything, on the contrary. I can’t find the thread either, but it wasn’t long ago, funny thing is as I wrote it the other day I thought you’d brought it up. Anyway type in Guadalcanal Bigfoot and there are loads of results, one in French funnily enough. There’s even a thread here;

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewt ... uadalcanal

It as though as Lordmongrove says very ropey stuff.

Lordmongrove thanks for the reply. I don’t mean to sound arrogant but I’m not especially convinced by historical provenance in an instance like this because of the negative precedent New Zealand sets. I remember the senator’s sighting it was covered on some programme back in the late 1990’s, which as I remember described an ape like creature. So one thing though I would like you to clarify, to make sure we’re not talking at cross purposes is what you mean by hominid, I think I take it by you’re mention of devolution that you mean it in the more selective sense, but I have to ask.
 
lordmongrove said:
The Garo Hills are amoungst the less populated and most poorly explored part of India.

But they are nor unknown nor unpopulated. We're not anymore in Edgar Rice Burroughs' times, when it might have looked plausible.
And what I had written about Sasquatch is also true of the yeti : we are supposed to believe that not only one, but two or more unknown species of big anthropoids are living in the Himalayas, all miraculously evaded detection.


oldrover said:
For me the Sasquatch has almost always felt as wrong as it’s possible to be, the Yeti, Yeren etc on the other hand I was always convinced of until recently. I wasn’t happy letting go of them either.

I had the same feeling with yeti and yeren...

oldrover said:
It’s been said that the Yowie could be a marsupial the thing is though the descriptions are the same as everywhere else. Even if there was a marsupial to fit the bill, there’s another problem, that’s the coincidence that two animals isolated for so long have evolved not only to be physically identical but share the same uncanny ability to be huge, be reported around human settlements, maintain adequate numbers to be both viable and be widespread enough to generate sightings in all parts of Australia, including Tasmania, except for the Capitol Territory and still never be either, shot, captured or photographed.

A convergence is very unlikely, because hominid shape is a very unusual one. And there is another argument against this possibility : the complete lack of fossils for such an animal. Hominids did not come out of nowhere, their apparition needed millions of years of evolution, and is quite well documented despite lacunae in the fossil record. For an Australian marsupial with a very unusual locomotive system, there is nothing. Darren Naish is right : a group of large animals always leaves fossil evidence. The lack of anything looking remotely like a Yowie is a clear indication that no such animals evolved in Australia.

And still the same problem : if there were, why didn't white explorers establish their existence ?
 
As much as I agree with everything you say about the Yowie, I don't think we've got anything like a complete fossil record of large Australian mammals.
 
lordmongrove, oldrover – thank you for the links. Have, I must admit, only speed-read the material from the Boirayon chap’s website.

I’m one who – unlike many with an interest in things cryptozoological – am ready to entertain paranormal / supernatural explanations (including “alien” involvement) for phenomena in this sphere. This being so: I could perhaps “buy” some of the notions which Mr. Boirayon puts forward on his website; but not all of them. The way he tells it: though I’m as susceptible as the next person, to the charm of the proposition “most of what you were taught, was wrong” – all of the stuff of which he tells about going on, being common knowledge to most Solomon Islanders but unknown to the world beyond – please ! All right, it’s an out-of-the-way part of the world; but it was “discovered” well over a hundred years ago, and colonised by Europeans – the British, if I have things rightly? – Germany got Bougainville Island until World War I, but islands further east were British from the first? There was a colonial administration there for decades and decades, and yet – with the degree of islander / three different species of giants, interaction, of which Boirayon tells – the Brit colonists and administrators were totally oblivious to the giants? And re World War II doings, also ? All that would be a scenario acceptable on the pages of J.K. Rowling – but not in real life.

Feelings from me, for what they’re worth, about Yowies and whatever there might or might not be in New Zealand (the Guadalcanal scene strikes me as just major-league weird – mostly, don’t know what to think about it) – there would seem to be something going on, anyway in Australia: the least-hard-to-swallow explanation for me, being the involvement in some way, of the paranormal / supernatural (others’ mileage may vary).
 
oldrover, thanks for the reference – I normally don’t look at the “Ghosts” sub-forum. Both Jac21’s longer posts, (“Green Man??” and “hyena-ish”) are interesting. The “hyena-like” one: with your Nandi Bear allusion -- one might whimsically wonder whether the N.B. had left East Africa (“just getting too, too crowded, darling”), and set up shop in England’s Peak District ... seriously, both of them eerie experiences.

Taking it (no offence meant to Jac21) that there was in both instances, something objectively there, to see: my sentiment would be, no alternative envisageable, to something in some way supernatural / paranormal being in play. Sightings of large, unknown creatures in Britain (such as the occasional reported ones of Yeti / Bigfoot-like beings – as at Bolam Lake in Northumberland not very many years ago) -- I would think it for certain that (as ever, no offence intended to anyone) if not a matter of lies / hallucinations, such things have got to involve the “super / para”: undiscovered breeding populations of large, purely-flesh-and-blood creatures in such a crowded, tamed and cleared country as Britain, are IMO out of the question.

Re “wherever in the world”, I would wish to be able to think otherwise about such things. For me, it would be a lot more exciting and cool, for there to prove to be purely-flesh-and-blood giant ape-men, or whatever else, having long lived undetected by “hom. sap.sap.”, in the world’s remote places; than for the matter to involve the boring old supernatural / paranormal, which has been inconclusively perplexing mankind for as long as there has been mankind. However, in today’s highly crowded and getting-ever-more- so, world – in nearly all cases, the “flesh-and-blood crypto” explanation is beyond my ability to credit. As ever, others’ mileages may vary.
 
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