The description of Bigfoot in most Bigfoot reports runs something like this:
Bigfoot is big and hairy, standing six to ten feet tall, broad and thick. He is quick and powerful, able to run deer down,and able to keep up with autos and cross a highway in three bounds. He can leap twenty feet from a standing position. He can jump off bluffs. There may be exaggerations and mistakes in some of these reports but not in all of them. The consensus is that bigfoot is vigorous and fast, and eats meat at least occasionally. Most people who have gotten a glimpse of his face, say he looks more human than ape-like. He walks upright on two feet almost exclusively.
The description of Gigantopithecus is taken from The Ape That was by Russel L. Ciochon:
The discovery of the jaws resolved, at least for most scientists, any doubts that the creature was apelike and not, as Weidenreich had argued, humanlike. Based on the fossils, Gigantopithecus is now placed among the Asian apes, a descendant, along with the orangutan, of the earlier ape ancestor Sivapithecus, best known from an 8-million-year-old skull discovered in Pakistan. Its size and ape affiliation suggest Gigantopithecus was a ground-dwelling, fist-walking creature.
While more teeth of the extinct ape have been found, no other bones have turned up. Based only on the jaws and teeth, however, an attempt can be made to reconstruct both the animal and its way of life. The jaws are deep (top to bottom) and very thick. The molars are low-crowned and flat, with very thick enamel caps suitable for heavy grinding. The premolars are broad and flat and resemble molars. The canine teeth are not sharp and pointed but shaped more like what one would expect premolars to look like, while the incisors are small, peglike, and closely packed. The canines and incisors together form a specialized cutting tool, most similar to what is found in some present-day tree sloths and in the extinct giant ground sloth. The features of the teeth, combined with the massive, robust jaws, lead to the inevitable conclusion that the animal was adapted to the consumption of tough, fibrous foods by cutting, crushing, and grinding them.
As a rule, large herbivores subsist on diets of coarse leaves and grasses, which are low in nutritional value but typically available in very large quantities. (Large animals succeed with this regime partly because their metabolic requirements are relatively low, in terms of energy required per unit of body mass.) One suggestion is that Gigantopithecus, or at least the larger species in China, was adapted, like the giant panda, to a diet of bamboo, the giant grass abundant in the region. The jaws of Gigantopithecus and the giant panda, if set side by side with the jawbones of, say, the gorilla and the grizzly bear, appear thicker, deeper, and more massive. These differences reflect the specialized diet of the panda (and, by inference, of Gigantopithecus) compared with the much more general diet of the gorilla and grizzly.
An outstanding characteristic of giant herbivores is their extreme slowness. They have no particular need of speed: their size and thick skins protect them from predators, and of course their feeding habits require no more of them than that they move from place to place as they systematically denude the landscape of vegetation.
Furthermore, they are usually stuffed full of bulky food to digest, which tends to produce inertia. Gigantopithecus probably followed this pattern.
That doesn't sound like bigfoot to me.
Here is another good article at Bigfoot Encounters which shows some images of what Gigantopithecus probably looked like.
I would like to point out that several Bigfoot witnesses have mentioned that the creature that they had sighted looked like the model of Bigfoot that Bill Munns created using Krantz's Gigantopithecus model. This should be no surprise since this model was designed to look like Bigfoot.
- William Mayes
- I've lived in the woods and came to know and understand the creatures that inhabit it. I have compassion for all God's creatures, most especially the creature known whimsically as "bigfoot", since he is more like us than any other. I am now an old man and unable to run around in the woods. If I were able I would be out there right now trying to prove his existence. I started this blog to try to express some of the ideas and speculations I have had on bigfoot. I am not into bigfoot social events. I don't gossip about other bloggers. I try to keep myself informed of events. My ideas and opinions are my own and I make no apology for them. They are not written in stone and I welcome any and all civil comments. I am looking for the truth, not fame.