Administrative Notice about Abominables

In future all information pertaining to living examples of fossil humans, Almas of Asia and the American counterpart,is to be sent to the Frontiers of Anthropology blog. If there is any new information on uncaught anthropoid apes, Yetis, Yeren, Yowies or Skunk apes (NAPEs), it shall be treated as any other news item, but I don't see any particular value in going over the older information again. Any information on fossil Gigantopithecus or possible survival of Gigantopithecus is to be given a higher priority, but once again we intend to focus on new material and news items on this blog.

                   Orangutan and Orang Pendek. Orang Pendek is considered identical to the smaller kind
                   of Yeti and Yeren, and a kind of Australian Yowie: similar creatures are also reported in
                   both North and South America. This information is still in exact accordance with Ivan T.
                   Sanderson's remarks on the subject made in 1961

Orang Pendek Web Site

http://cliffbarackman.com/research/orang-pendek-project/
http://cliffbarackman.com/research/orang-pendek-project/about-the-orang-pendek/
http://cliffbarackman.com/research/orang-pendek-project/orang-pendek-project-data-index/

 

On the basis of the new tracks and other new data I would say that beyond any shade of a doubt the (Apelike) Orang Pendek is the same as The Little Yeti (le Petit Yeti, of Heuvelmans), the smaller Yeren  (Of Greenwell LINK), presumably the Hibagon of Japan, and the NAPES of North America (Category created by Loren Coleman but including earlier statements of Ivan Sanderson and others) Commonly also known as Swamp Ape, Wood Ape and Skunk Ape LINK & LINK.

 

 This is my statement and not the conclusion of Cliff Barackman or anybody associated with the site.

 

North American Mittenfoot track, right foot print with
Opposed big toe off to the side on the left in this photo

 

 

It is absolutely imperative that we determine whether this is a different species from the more usual orangutans: word so far is that they are not recognizably genetically distinct from them. That could change later, and if it changes for the one form it should change for the same series because their footprints are all similar. There is a related Latin American form but its footprints do NOT match

 

The caveat remains that "Orang Pendek" in common usage is not a specific term for only the apelike creature and it can be applied to humans as well, and that in fact the same also applies to Yeti, Yeren, Skunk Ape and so on, none of these terms are specific to any one thing in common usage.

Wildmen Update

 

http://gbtimes.com/past-present/modern-china/are-wild-men-secretly-roaming-chinas-forests

 

Are wild men secretly roaming China’s forests?

By Tim Frederick

11.08.2013 - 15:00

 

 Is the legendary Yeren, China’s version of Bigfoot, actually real and living in the most remote regions of China? According to an expert researcher on the subject, the answer is a resounding yes. 

 Yuan Guoying is a researcher with the Xinjiang Environmental Protection Institute, and has researched the subject of China’s Wildman for over 40 years. He claims that “at least” 200 such creatures are living in the country today, and possibly as many as 500. He also claims that there are actually seven or eight different species of the Wildman, and not just one.

Long history of Wildman sightings 

 Legends of the Yeren date back centuries in China. The Shennongjia region of northwestern Hubei province has long been a particular hotbed of sightings, which is why the Wildman is often referred to as Shénnóngjiàyěrén, “The Wildman of Shennongjia”. The creature is often described as having a red or brown coat of hair, and being 6½ to 7 feet tall. Reported incidents of Yeren sightings have not only been made by private citizens, but also by more reputable public figures. In 1940, biologist Wang Tselin claimed to have examined the corpse of a female Yeren killed in Gansu region. A decade later, geologist Fan Jingquan claimed to have seen two wild men, described as a mother and son. In 1976, six bureaucrats claimed they encountered a Yeren on a remote highway in Hubei province, near Chunshuya. They described the creature as having thick brown and red fur, an ape-like face with human-like eyes, and large buttocks, which one of them threw a rock at. Yeren do not like rocks being thrown at their buttocks apparently, as the creature rose up on two legs and frightened the bureaucrats away, before retreating. That account prompted the Chinese Academy of Sciences to send a team of 110 investigators to the region in search of evidence. No sightings were made of any creature, though the investigators did make off with some hair and feces which locals claimed were from Yeren. A more recent account occurred in 2007 when four separately traveling tourists all claimed to have had near-encounters with two Yeren in the Shennongjia Nature Reserve.

 Serious doubt cast on expert’s assertions

Despite the numerous sightings over the years, several intricate expeditions to unearth evidence, and researcher Yuan’s unwavering belief in the existence of the Yeren, bodies or fossils of such a creature have never been found. Yuan references the supposed hair and footprints of the creatures that have been discovered as further proof, though nothing definitive has ever been revealed about those specimens. Without any real proof to sustain them, most scientists show little interest in the Yeren, and funding for research into their existence has dried up. Yuan refuses to give up however and vows to continue his search. "If they do not exist, how come we have so many witnesses and stories about them?" he questions. -
- See more at: http://gbtimes.com/past-present/modern-china/are-wild-men-secretly-roaming-chinas-forests#sthash.qI3vNs5f.dpuf

http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~vern/wildman.html
http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~vern/wildman/anu796.txt

Seeing is believing, or is it? How scientific is 'Wildman' research?

COMMENT By Helmut Loofs-Wissowa*
A surprising reappraisal has been taking place in human biology during the past few years. The border between what is "human" and what is "animal" is being subtly shifted to include in the human category the Great Apes (gorilla, chimpanzee and orangutan, with all the moral and ethical implications inherent in such a shift. More modestly, we may see ourselves as being part of the Great Apes (see Colin Groves' talk on Occam 's Razor on 28 April) and perceive the Great Divide as being between Us and the monkeys. There is also talk about the possibility of a new species of humans walking the land, their DNA artificially altered, straight into the rosy-fingered dawn of yet another Brave New World. And yet, while all this dramatic rethinking is going on, we do not even know the exact situation within our own genus Homo. We blindly persist in believing that we, Homo sapiens, are the only extant species within this genus. We are convinced, in spite of steadily growing evidence to the contrary, that we hold the monopoly of human-ness proper (never mind our closeness to the great apes), not unlike the conviction some centuries ago that the Earth was the centre of the Universe. And like Galileo, those who dare question this dogma find themselves in the impossible position of having to prove something that cannot be proved to those who do not want to know. In those times, such heretics were in danger of being burnt at the stake; at present they are branded, by the Establishment, as being "unscientific". It is idle to speculate what hurts more: at the stake it was over in an hour or so, but the "unscientific" label may stick to you for many years if not for life. The question thus is whether the search for still unknown non-sapiens hominids, usually called "Wildmen", has anything to do with science. There are by now thousands of reports of such Wildmen throughout the world: Abominable Snowmen or Yetis in the Himalayas, Yeren in China, Sasquatch or Bigfoot in North America, "Forestmen" in Indochina, and Yahoos, Yowies or Hairymen in Australia. There are also reports of such beings, under different names, from Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma, Pakistan, Mongolia, the Caucasus, various parts of Africa and even South America. To dismiss all this as collective hallucination, the primitive need for the mythological or simply as archetypal legends common to all mankind will not do any more. Even though some of these explanations are the results of fairly recent profound thinking, they now appear like rear-guard attempts by some medieval Church authorities to explain away an irritating (because it does not fit into the orthodox world-view) natural phenomenon. That is precisely what the continuing existence of "Wildmen" is: there is no room for them. The best way to solve the parking problem is to erect "no parking" signs everywhere, is it not? Same here: affirm that the Wildmen problem does not exist and it is ipso facto solved. To ridicule those who believe in their existence by saying that therefore they must also believe in UFOs does not help either, because these are two totally unrelated issues, separated by a huge gap on the probability scale and lumped together in the minds of some naive "skeptics" only because both are outside the rigid boundaries of conventional knowledge. No, we as academics owe it to our contemporaries to come to grips with this problem and solve it on a scientific basis. But how do we go about doing this? Having recently returned from "Wildman" research in Laos with what I thought were very good results, I was accused of not being scientific enough by some of my colleagues, and even by a journalist. I therefore wish to Justify myself; but this is done more in sorrow than in anger. There seems to be a general agreement that the essence of the scientific method is the "validation of hypotheses by observation or experiments" (The Heritage Dictionary), to which should be added that this must be verifiable by others. The formulation of an hypothesis is thus to be seen as the first and foremost criterion for something to be "scientific". My own hypothesis, based on many years of research, is that there still exist higher primate forms distinct from both the Pongidae and Homo sapiens, i.e. either still unknown bipedal pongids or non-sapiens hominids, in certain inaccessible parts of the Indochinese Peninsula and in particular in a well-defined spot in Central Laos near the border with Vietnam, from which I had reports of the existence of "gorillas" in the late 1960s. These reports came from Vietnamese, Laotian, American and Australian sources, checked and double-checked with regard to their authenticity and trustworthiness. My "experiment" consisted in going there (which is far from easy), interviewing old people in remote villages and eventually recording first-hand information about powerfully built hairy manlike creatures which/who used to live in precisely the area I expected them to have been until it was bombed, defoliated and napalmed (because the Ho Chi Minh Trail was going through it) which resulted in the destruction of the primary forest, their habitat. In order to pinpoint more closely their physical appearance, I had prepared a set of pictures to choose from: photographs and drawings of the Great Apes, reconstitution drawings or paintings of some prehistoric hominids such as "Java Man" and the reconstitution drawing, after the original photographs, of the famous "Minnesota Iceman", identified by one of the foremost zoologists of our time, Dr Bernard Heuvelmans of Paris, as being a relic Neanderthal originating very probably from Vietnam. It was to this latter picture (which is reproduced on this page), drawn by Heuvelmans' exwife Alika Lindburgh that everybody pointed without the slightest hesitation as being the best representation of the creatures they had seen. My original hypothesis has been validated inasmuch as there are irrefutable indications for the existence at least into the recent past, if not into the present, of obviously non-sapiens hominids, almost certainly of the relic Neanderthal type, in the area I hypothesised them to be. This can be verified by whoever is game enough to repeat my experiment! This research has been conducted strictly according to the rules and should therefore qualify for the coveted label "scientific". Not so, say certain skeptics or "mainstream" anthropologists, palaeontologists, human biologists or whatever: where is the proof? We want to be convinced! The counter-argument is "this cannot be: non-sapiens hominids cannot exist any more because they are extinct, as we all know"; end of conversation. There is thus either no initial hypothesis at all (ignore the problem and it ceases to exist), which is certainly not "scientific", or the hypothesis is that such creatures do not and cannot exist, which is impossible to prove by any experiment or observation, the less so if one keeps in mind the dictum that "the absence of evidence is no evidence for absence". Back to the demand of proof by those who must be convinced. Unfortunately, "proof" and "evidence" are never a matter of simply yes or no; there are grades and shades. There is "no proof", "hardly any proof', "proof", "good proof' and "ironclad proof". As to evidence, it can be "not a skerrick of evidence", "some evidence", "evidence" and, if you are lucky, "hard evidence". But the degree of hardness is always determined by the receiver of the evidence, not the giver of it (perhaps we should call them now the "evidencer" versus the "evidencee"). If the evidencee just does not want to be convinced, there is little the evidencer can do except for breaking some crockery or hitting a punch-bag to relieve his/her frustration. The decision of what is "convincing" and what is not is entirely in the hands - or rather the minds-of the custodians of "science as we know it". Obviously, these custodians know more of the theoretical framework of evolution and of palaeontology than the illiterate peasant in the Lao-Vietnam border region. And yet, when it comes to observing the jungle around them, the latter, free from preconceived ideas, is by far the more reliable provider of evidence than the former. The jungle is the testing ground for theories, not the study of the armchair academic. However, as proof, the testimonial of the Laotian montagnard (or Nepalese sherpa or Chinese peasant), faithfully transmitted by the researcher, is usually considered to be insufficient, although all workers in the field know of the fundamental honesty of indigenous people towards strangers (Margaret Mead and her informants not withstanding! ). I cannot help smelling the nauseating odour of racism here. What, then, would really convince these unscientific skeptics? The first answer to this question, usually accompanied by an arrogant smirk, is: I believe it when I see it! But if ever they were really to see the object of their disbelief, e.g. a Wildman in up-country Laos, they would in turn not be believed upon their return home! They would themselves see the smirk on the faces of their interlocutors and would have enormous and well-deserved trouble in trying to convince them. "Seeing is believing" only works for the individual and cannot be used as proof or evidence for those who do not want to be convinced. The next step normally is "Wanted: one wildman, dead or alive". Thus runs the revealing title of the rather negative review of Myra Shackley's book Wildmen by a well-known British human biologist in New Scientist, August 1983. Revealing, because it shows the unyielding attitude of the Establishment in the face of over-whelming evidence gathered by an intrepid, although fallible, scholar by simply demanding the impossible. It is physically and materially impossible for any one scholar working in the field to produce a living, fierce, growling and biting six-foot Wildman from Outer Mongolia (or for that matter from Central Laos), or even its/his decomposing body, like a rabbit out of a hat, for the benefit of an incredulous armchair colleague in London. It is also ethically impossible. And here we come to the crux of the matter. Unlike cryptozoological research for other animals like the Tasmanian Tiger, that for Wildmen is really anthropological research (i.e. the search for unknown human beings) and must therefore be conducted according to the ethical principles and scientific rules of anthropology rather than of zoology or palaeontology. If there is now the tendency, among more enlightened primatologists and other scholars, to view the Great Apes as being entitled to the same protection as humans (right to life, protection of individual liberty and prohibition of torture), why should this not be so for still unknown hominoids and especially non-sapiens hominids? The latter are clearly man and should automatically enjoy the rights thereof, regardless of whether these rights will eventually also be accorded to the Great Apes. In practical terms this means that in no circumstances (except in self-defence) is a researcher allowed to kill the object of his/her research in order to get possession of it as iron-clad proof of its existence. Even the hunting, subduing, stunning or capturing of a Wildman cannot be permissible because it would deprive this creature of its liberty and would probably even involve some form of torture. What if, for argument's sake, a hitherto unknown tribe was discovered tomorrow in a remote valley in Irian Jaya: could any western scholar, sitting in his armchair, say "get me one of those blokes dead or alive or else I am not convinced of their existence"? Certainly not; he would either have to go to the remote valley to see for himself or he would have to be content with the description provided by the anthropologist in the field without this being less scientific. Anthropological research has been done in this way ever since it began and it developed into a fully fledged science without there ever having been this arrogant demand for "proof" by those who stayed at home. One last-ditch argument by the skeptics often is that even though you are not supposed to kill a Wildman, there must be lots of bodies or skeletons of them around there where you claim they live: why can you not bring home a skull or at least some bones to convince us? So: must there? How many bodies or skeletons of the Great Apes were found before their existence became known through eye-witness accounts? At the very least, we want something tangible beyond mere hearsay, such as footprints, tufts of hair, faeces, sound recordings or photographs, as if any of these was in itself more trustworthy and unequivocal than the testimonial of honest, observant and unbiased - if uneducated -"natives". On the contrary: every single such item has again and again been dismissed by those who do not want to be convinced. Footprints must be those of a bear or are dilated by weathering, tufts of hair could be from any odd beast, same for faeces, sound recordings are probably fakes and photographs are vague, not in focus, too dark and probably fakes, too. To which the researcher could add that even the best photograph cannot answer better than a faithful eye-, ear- or nose-witness account certain questions regarding the exact taxon of the observed creature, its gait, habits, movements, reactions, smell, etc., thus everything that transforms it from a theoretical into a real human being. The more one deals with these matters, the more one is struck by the close similarities and yet paradoxical differences between what is going on in a court of justice and in the corridors of what masquerades as science. There are a number of expressions in the legal vocabulary which science, and in particular that dealing with human beings, could do better than ignore, such as "balance of probabilities", "onus of proof" "beyond reasonable doubt", and above all the admirable Anglo-Saxon maxim of "innocent until proven guilty" which is constantly contravened by skeptics for the sake of scientific objectivity. A person "claiming" to have seen a Wildman is automatically presumed to be guilty of lying(because Wildmen cannot exist!) unless he can "prove" the existence of Wildmen by some other means and thus his innocence to the satisfaction of the one who accuses him of lying! What a charade! This kind of "science" clearly has reached its use-by date and should be taken off the shelves immediately. Time has come in Wildman research to shift the onus of proof squarely on to the skeptics and to realise that beyond a certain point doubt is not only not any more reasonable but also a positive (or should one say negative?) hindrance to the advancement of real science. This is the more urgent as all still insufficiently known relic hominoids are endangered species and they may disappear before they have been officially "discovered". This would certainly not be to the greater glory of the scientific Establishment at the tum of the millennium. At fault is not the scientific method as such, which has been adhered to scrupulously by most researchers in this field, what is at fault is the one-sided and short-sighted interpretation of what is thought by "main-stream" researchers to be the essence of this method: its thrust. The scientific method aims at finding out, not keeping out. Long live the scientific method!

*Dr Helmut Loofs-Wissowa, a trained anthropologist, is retired Reader in Asian History and now a Visiting Fellow at the Southeast Asia Centre, Faculty of Asian Studies, ANU.
 A showing of the Japanese television film on "Wildman" research, which covers Dr Loofs-Wissowa 's work among other topics, will be screened in the common room of the Asian Studies (Baldessin Precinct) Building on 31 July at 6pm. The film will be in Japanese. Source ANU Reporter 27(12): 4. Wednesday 17 July 1996

For the record I was in contact with Loofs-Wissowa before he died because he was interested in certain information I had. For the record I consider that two basic species are involved in reports of the Yeti, Yeren and Nguoi Ring: one more humanlike one and one more apelike one, and neither one seems to be verifiably an unknown species yet. The hairy man seems to be a subtype of Homo sapiens and the ape a kind of orangutan, and we DO have some possible remains of them as fossil forerunners and more recent samples of bones, hair and teeth that have been tenatively identified as being a type of early man and a kind of orangutan. So actually so far we do not have a real Cryptozoological mystery about either one of them. Above and beyond both is the larger, rarer mystery creature which could be a Gigantopithecus and this one would be the genuine cryptid of the bunch. The same exact situation and even the same exact species seem to be on North America, going by the tracks. Once again, the more manlike one would be a man and the more apelike one would be an ape.

Followup to Meldrum article

There is a reconstruction of the Chinese Yeren included in the article and drawn after the Witness' specifications, the article's Figure 3:

I do consider this to be an exceptionally good representation but of the wrong type. This is at least partly copied fter a drawing made from reports in the Caucasus, of the Almas type. It is a pretty good representation of the Eastern Bigfoot AKA The American Almas. It is a different type than the typical Sasquatch that the footprints are attributed to in the article. Both types are present in China and especially noting also Manchuria, and this type is also reported all across Siberia and Central Asia, and traditionally into Japan also. This would include the Marked Hominid of Coleman and based on the work of Mark A. Hall, and the composite is a good match for "Mecheny"

Bones and teeth of this type have been found and they are classified as a variety or subspecies of Homo sapiens, differentiated from the rest of us mostly because they have more prominent body hair.

Jeff Meldrum, FOOTPRINT EVIDENCE OF THE CHINESE YEREN

The RELICT HOMINOID INQUIRY 1:57-66 (2012)

*Correspondence to: Jeff Meldrum. Department of Biological Sciences, Idaho State University, 921 S. 8th Ave, Pocatello, ID 83209-8007, email: meldd@isu.edu. © RHI

Brief Communication

FOOTPRINT EVIDENCE OF THE CHINESE YEREN

Jeff Meldrum

1*, Zhou Guoxing2

1
Department of Biological Sciences, Idaho State University, 921 S. 8th Ave, Pocatello, ID 83209; 2Beijing Museum of Natural History, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

ABSTRACT.


The 1970’s saw a keen interest by the Chinese government in the "snowman question." A state-sponsored expedition was mounted to central China (Hubei Province) to investigate the possible presence of a correspondingly large bipedal hominid, referred to as the yeren, or wild man. In 1977, a team lead by Professor Zhou Guoxing gathered eyewitness accounts, hair samples, and footprints, but no specimen of yeren was retrieved. In 2008 the authors met at the Beijing Museum of Natural and proceeded to Hubei’s Shennongjia National Nature Reserve to interview witnesses, including a park ranger, Yuan Yuhao, who claimed to have observed a yeren in the reserve, at a distance of approximately 500 m. The site was at an elevation of approximately 2100 m in a mosaic of forest and sedge meadows. The yeren covered in reddish brown hair, was sunning itself. When Yuan called out, it rose and walked away bipedally. Yuan cast a clear pair of its footprints, which measured approximately 38 cm in length, 16.5 cm across the forefoot, and 10 cm across the heel. The footprints indicated a plantigrade, pentadactyl foot lacking evidence of claws. The hallux was larger than the lateral toes and non-divergent. A midtarsal pressure ridge indicated a significant degree of flexibility in the midfoot. In all distinguishing characteristics the casts resembled the ichnotaxon Anthropoidipes ameriborealis MELDRUM 2007. This evidence suggests independent corroboration of the existence of an unrecognized bipedal primate species with a circum-Pacific distribution.

KEY WORDS

: sasquatch, wildman, bipedal locomotion, midtarsal break

Numerous narratives of encounters with an unidentified bipedal hominid have been reported from central China, especially in Hubei Province (Fig. 1.). The Shennongjia region of Hubei Province comprises 3200 km
2 of montane forest, with an average elevation of over 2000 m (latitude 31.5o N, longitude 110.4o E). The region has long harbored legends of the yeren or wildman (Dong, 2000; Shackley, 1983; Zhou, 1982). These were given particular note in the 1970’s. One incident in 1976 involved five officials of the Regional Forestry Committee, who approached to within a few meters of the upright creature they described as covered in reddish brown hair, excepting the palms, soles, and relatively flat face showing a mixture of human-like and ape-like features. It reportedly walked upright, standing nearly 2 m in height, leaving large human-like footprints (Zhou, n.d.).

A large-scale sustained scientific expedition sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences was undertaken in the region in 1977. It was lead by Prof. Zhou Guoxing, Beijing Natural History Museum, and involved over 100 members, including soldiers in the Red Army (Fig. 2.). Local inhabitants were interviewed, the remote mountains were searched, and hair, footprints, and scat were recovered, but no specimen of 
yeren was obtained. DJ MELDRUM AND ZHOU GOUXING
58


Eyewitness descriptions yielded a consistent profile of a creature 2.0 - 2.5 m in height; generally upright; covered in reddish brown hair (but also, grey, brownish-yellow, black, or rarely white in color); human-shaped footprints measuring 30 - 40 cm in length, with the hallux sometimes somewhat abducted; females with prominent breasts; solitary; monotonous yelling call; omnivorous diet; lack of tools or material culture; and frequently nocturnal activity (Zhou, 1982).

In 2008, Meldrum met with Zhou at the Beijing Museum of Natural History and reviewed some of the evidence collected during the Shennongjia expeditions. They next proceeded to Hubei Province, where additional eyewitnesses were interviewed. Zhang Jiahong, a farmer near the village of Mu Yu, described an encounter with two
yeren while gathering medicinal herbs on September 15, 2005. He observed the hominoids from a distance of 15 m feeding on vegetation. They stood over 2 m tall, were entirely hair-covered, including the flat face, excepting the eyes and largo nose. He nervously coughed, alerting the yeren to his presence. They slowly retreated from the scene, remaining upright.

An identikit was provided, which included various photographs and depictions of bear and primates common to the region, various depictions of known great apes, artistic renderings of various hominins, and conceptions of the
yeren as well as the North American sasquatch. Zhang was impressed by the color of the orangutan hair, but assertively selected the rendering illustrated in Figure 3 as most similar to what he saw.

In Shennongjia National Nature Reserve a park ranger, Yuan Yuhao, was interviewed. Yuan, who had been a lay member of the original 1970s investigations (Schmalzer, 2008), claimed to have observed a
yeren in the reserve in 1995. He was on patrol climbing a slope near the head of a valley at an elevation of approximately 2100 m. The site is a mosaic of fir forest and sedge meadows. Yuan observed the yeren through binoculars at a distance of approximately 500 m. It was covered in reddish brown hair, reclining and sunning itself on the exposed facing slope. When Yuan called out to it, it returned his gaze and finally arose and walked away bipedally into the nearby treeline. Yuan estimated its height at 2.3 m. Yuan concurred with Zhang’s selection of the hominoid depiction in Figure 3. He subsequently tracked the creature and cast a clear pair of its footprints alongside a nearby spring.

The casts measure approximately 38 cm in length, 16.5 cm across the forefoot, and 10 cm across the heel (Fig. 4). The footprints indicate a plantigrade, pentadactyl foot lacking evidence of claws (Fig. 5). The hallux is larger than the lateral toes and non-divergent. A distinct midtarsal pressure ridge indicates a significant degree of flexibility in the midfoot. The deepest point on the cast lies on the medial margin just distal to the pressure ridge, apparently beneath the navicular. In all distinguishing characteristics the casts resemble footprint casts recovered at the Patterson-Gimlin film site at Bluff Creek, in northern California, 1967 (Figs. 6, 7).

Presumably the right and left footprints were left as the
yeren squatted beside the spring. This action would have elevated the hindfoot, concentrating pressure beneath the forefoot distal to the transverse tarsal joint. The plasticity of the moist bare soil resulted in the pressure ridge proximal to the transverse tarsal joint (Fig. 8).

The remarkable similarity of the midtarsal pressure ridge in the
yeren casts to that present in the example attributed to the sasquatch, i.e., referred to Anthropoidipes ameriborealis MELDRUM 2007 (Fig. 9, 10), denotes a common architecture of the foot, characterized by a flat flexible midfoot lacking a fixed longitudinal arch, and FOOTPRINT EVIDENCE OF THE CHINESE YEREN

59


retaining considerable mobility at the midtarsus (Meldrum, 2004; 2007).

The interpretation of this feature is further evidenced by the occurrence of "half tracks" (Fig. 11) in which only the forefoot leaves an impression, due to the elevated heel segment when running (Meldrum, 2004, 2006). The fixed longitudinal arch of the human foot is an adaptation for endurance running, loading the well-developed calcaneal tendon as an elastic storage mechanism. The track is abbreviated to the ball of the foot at the metatarsophalangeal joints. Lacking a fixed longitudinal arch, the
yeren (and sasquatch) foot collapses into flexion at the transverse tarsal joint when running, producing a "half-track."

The possibility remains that the footprint casts attributed to the
yeren were fabricated, however it should be noted that they originate from a time before that particular cast from the Bluff Creek site was widely publicized (Krantz, 1992); certainly before any discussions of its significance for a proposed model of midfoot flexibility (Meldrum, 2004). Therefore, the notable similarity in morphology between the yeren casts and the type and referred material of Anthropoidipes ameriborealis may provide independent corroboration of the footprint evidence for an unrecognized bipedal hominoid with a circum-Pacific distribution.

LITERATURE CITED

Dong P (2000)

China’s Major Mysteries. San Francisco: China Books and Periodicals, Inc.

Meldrum DJ (2004) Midfoot flexibility, fossil footprints, and sasquatch steps: New perspectives on the evolution of bipedalism.
J. Scientific Exploration 18:67-79.

Meldrum DJ (2006) Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science. New York: Tom Doherty Associates.

Meldrum DJ (2007) Ichnotaxonomy of giant hominoid tracks in North America. In: Lucas SG, Spielman JA, Lockley MG, editors,
Cenozoic Vertebrate Tracks and Traces. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 42:225-231.

Shackley M (1983)
Still Living? The Yeti, Sasquatch and the Neanderthal Enigma. New York: Thames and Hudson.

Schmalzer S (2008) The People’s Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identify in Twentieth-century China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Zhou G (n.d.) The investigation of Shennongjia "Wildman." The Institute of Paleoanthropology and Vertebrate Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Science. Unpublished Report (translated, 1979).

Zhou G (1982) The status of Wildman research in China.
Cryptozoology 1:13-23. DJ MELDRUM AND ZHOU GOUXING

60

Figure 1.

Satellite image of eastern Asia. Circle indicates region centered in Hubei Province, China, where numerous sightings of the yeren have been reported.

 

Figure 2

. Some expedition members with Professor Zhou Gouxing (front row, second from right). FOOTPRINT EVIDENCE OF THE CHINESE YEREN

61

Figure 3

. Eyewitnesses’ impression of the appearance of the yeren.

Figure 4.

Footprint casts of the yeren collected by Yuan Yuhao in the Shennongjia Reserve. DJ MELDRUM AND ZHOU GOUXING

62

Figure 5.

Distal view of the footprint casts illustrating the digits.

Figure 6.

Comparison of the yeren footprint casts with a cast from the Patterson-Gimlin film site (Bluff Creek, California) attributed to the sasquatch (center). FOOTPRINT EVIDENCE OF THE CHINESE YEREN

63

Figure 7.

Medial views of the yeren footprint cast (above) compared with the cast from the Patterson-Gimlin film site (Bluff Creek, California) attributed to the sasquatch (below). Note the similarity in the midtarsal pressure ridge in each footprint. DJ MELDRUM AND ZHOU GOUXING

64

Figure 8.

Inferred arrangement of the pedal skeleton and triceps surae in the yeren and sasquatch (left) as compared to the human (right) correlated with the presence or absence of the midtarsal pressure ridge (arrow). See text for discussion.

Figure 9.

Footprint casts from Bluff Creek, California, made by Roger Patterson October 1967, constituting the type of the ichnotaxon Anthropoidipes ameriborealis MELDRUM 2007.FOOTPRINT EVIDENCE OF THE CHINESE YEREN

65

Figure 10.

Footprint casts from the Patterson-Gimlin film site at Bluff Creek, California, made by Bob Timus in 1967, constituting the referred material of the ichnotaxon Anthropoidipes ameriborealis MELDRUM 2007. DJ MELDRUM AND ZHOU GOUXING

66

Figure 11.

Casts made by Meldrum in 1996 near Walla Walla, Washington, comparing a full- length footprint with a "halftrack" illustrating the flexibility at the transverse tarsal joint.

Saturday September 15, 2012

One Big foot for Hubei

The home of Bigfoot in China seeks to boost eco-tourism.
SHENNONGJIA, a forest region and long rumoured to be home of the elusive and “mythical” Bigfoot in the central province of Hubei, China, is looking into developing its eco-tourism to boost the region’s economy.
Less than two months after the Shennongjia Nature Reserve was given a 5A-Class Scenic Spot classification, China’s highest official ranking of scenery spots, the region has teamed up with Beijing to seek its help in developing its tourism industry following an agreement signed between Shennongjia and Beijing municipal commission of tourism development, Xinhua news agency reported.
Travel agencies in Beijing will launch several tour programmes, and the Chinese capital has agreed to provide training for tourism professionals in the underdeveloped region, said Shennongjia forest region party chief Qian Yuankun.
Qian believes an eco-tourism boom is impending in the coming years with Shennongjia’s first airport expected to be completed next year.

 It seems the big, mysterious, bipedal ape-man isn’t just confined to the US. China and even Malaysia seem to have them too. The sketch above is from johorhominid.org of the Malaysian variety.
 

Qu Hao, an official with the state-owned Shennong Tourism Company, said Beijing may send chartered flights or trains to Shennongjia during peak seasons as getting to the mountainous region can be challenging.
Located deep in the remote mountains in Hubei, Shennongjia Nature Reserve has long been rumoured to be home of the elusive creature known in China as Yeren or “Wildman” in English. It is often referred to as “Bigfoot” after the legendary North American ape-man.
More than 400 people have claimed sightings of Bigfoot in the Shennongjia region over the last century, but no evidence has been found to prove the creature’s existence. The region is also home to the rare golden monkeys, which are on the verge of extinction and were first spotted in Shennongjia in the 1960s.
Dubbed “Noah’s Arc”, the region provided shelter and protection for animals and plants against glacier activities some 2.5 million years ago.
Shennongjia, with its abundant rain and water resources and a middle-latitude location, is today home to more than 3,700 plant species and some 1,050 animal species. At least 40 plant species and 70 animal species are under key state protection.
Shennongjia was placed on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s World Network of Biosphere Reserves list in 1990.

Source

 

Once Again for India, China, Tibet and Southeast Asia generally we are indicated to have a major kind of unknown primate of very large size that is quite rare, which leaves footprints of human shape but from 13 inches long to over 22 inches long, but 14 to 18 inches are typical. This is identical to the Sasquatch and is probably Gigantopithecus. The smaller mainland ape is called the Mawas in Malaysia, Xing-Xing in China and "Bigmonkey" (Olo-Bandar or Mahalangur) in India and Nepal and it is the type illustrated above as the Malaysian kind in the article above and again to the left. It is an ape related to the orangutan and possibly identical also to the Orang Pendek (Orang Padak in Malaysia)-the classification remains controversial at present. Mawas and Xing-Xing are names which are definitely used to mean orangutan also. One site gives the description which follows:

Also known as the Orang Mawa or the Malaysian Mawa, the Johor Hominid is a bipedal, ape-like cryptid that reportedly inhabits the [248 million-year-old] Johor jungle of Malaysia. Witnesses say the creature is covered in black fur, stands up to 12 feet (3.6 m) tall, and subsists on a diet of fish, fruit, and according to some reports, wild boar. The Orang Asli natives refer to the Johor Hominid as “Hantu jarang gigi”, which translates to “Snaggle-toothed Ghost.”
Reported sightings of the Johor Hominid date back as early as the late 1800s. The latter-half of the last century saw evidence of the creature’s existence in the form of large footprints, each with four toes and roughly 18 inches (45.7cm) long, found in 1995. In 2005, witnesses reported seeing a Johor Bigfoot family, including parents and a juvenile, near the Kincin River, where more footprints were later found. This description is more of the Sasquatch type. I have set the date of the jungle off by brackets because that date obviously represents the date of the bedrock and not the jungle which currently grows on top of it.

 

Gigantopithecus,_Museum_of_Man,_San_Diego (file name) From Wikipedia

Also at the same time there is the more usual Wildman type to which Ivan Sanderson allocated two categories in the region: one in Southern China and the other in Malaysia. The latter is the more humanoid "Hominid" reported in the Johor region but also in all of the other territories. It also seems identical to both the Iceman, Vietnamese Wildman and Central Asiatic Almas by consensus of opinion of most Cryptozoologists. There is a problem that in any given region, all of these categories could very well be covered by the same name: Yeren in China, Yeti in Tibet and Orang Gugu (gigi) in Malaya. That is why Cryptozoologists have got to be more careful in the names they are choosing to throw around so casually.

 

Bigfoot Evidence-Chinese Yeren Research

62 Year Old Yeren Researcher Shares The Secret To Finding The Legendary Creature

 Thursday, August 30, 2012

 

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Bigfoot Chicks, Melissa Adair. As serious researchers, the Bigfoot Chicks are commited to seeking the truth regarding the Bigfoot mystery. You can visit their blog at bigfootchicks.blogspot.com.

In a recent article by Wang Xiaodong in China Daily, 62 year old Li Guohua, Yeren researcher for over three decades, shares the secret to finding the legendary "Wild Man" of the mountains of Shennongjia. Having dedicated almost half his life to finding the creature, he was rewarded with an unforgettable encounter and several sightings

 

For more of the story Click Here

 

Chinese Yeren. This is a funny one, it is a colourized verson of an illustration I copied out of Ivan Sanderson's files in the 1970s and I put up in my Yahoo group. It is a representation of Russian sightings from the Caucasus as done for an American magazine. I sure would like to know how it came to represent a Chinese Yeren, although saying Kaptar=Almas=Yeren would help somewhat