Yeti Tracks

There was a posting that was made here earlier and I was asked to take it down by the original owner. It was no big deal and so I did. The pertinent information, though, was this: while researching the well-known Eric Shipton "Yeti" track above, this other person saw an adjoining photo from an art poster site which also supposedly showed Yeti tracks from Mount Everest, presumably also from the Shipton expedition.

 http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Yeti-Footprints-in-the-Snow-Posters_i1590262_.htm

 

And it was stated that the one Shipton track must have been one exceptional printout of this line of irregular "footprints" of different sizes and shapes. If so, then it becomes even more likely that the print when found was pretty much hopeless until it was cosmetically cleaned up for the camera.

 

In the meantime I also pasted together this interesting comparison: Grover Krantz had said that Sasquatch prints were actually disproportionately large, being both longer and wider relative to height than in human footprints. He made the comparison that I converted to the superimposed tracks on the right, the brown one being a Sasquatch footprint and the green one a human one, both from individuals six feet tall. After I did that, a thought struck me and I made the set at left for comparison, in which the brown one is a Wildman (Neanderthaloid) track and the green one human, again both at six feet tall. This does dramatise the differences and the similarities, but basically Wildman tracks are modified-normal-human for sturdier and more muscular bodies while Sasquatch footprints indicate a complete reorganization of the system.They appear to have human proportions but that is actually something of a coincidence.

 

 

 

For reference, here is Tyler Stone's scale for types of Yetis, building on my own information

 but using Sanderson's standard names for the types:

 

On The Track of the Abominable Snowman

Yeti, On the Track of The Abominable Snowman

http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/Mysterious-Creatures/Apelike-Monsters-Yeti.html

[I have added most of the photos from a google photosearch]

Tales of hairy monsters existing in the Asian wilderness can be found in the writings of several venerable Chinese scholars who linked these creatures to the "time of the dragon," the presumed genesis of Asian civilization. Despite an occasional report by a European visitor to the region, the apelike creatures did not receive any sort of widespread notoriety until the beginning of the twentieth century.

During an expedition into the Himalayas in 1906, botanist H. J. Elwes was astonished to glimpse a hairy figure racing across a field of snow below him. The scientific establishment dismissed his report until several scholars discovered the journals of Major Lawrence Waddell, who, during his 1887 expedition, reported having found humanlike tracks in the snow.

The First Everest Expedition was launched in 1921, led by Colonel C. K. Howard-Bury. The climbing party of six British men and 26 native porters was crawling slowly up the north face of Everest, near the Lhakpa La Pass, when Howard-Bury spotted tracks in the morning snow. Most of them were easily recognizable as those of rabbits or foxes, but one set of indentations was peculiar, appearing as if a man walking barefoot had made them. A Sherpa guide identified the tracks as belonging to the Yeti or the "mehteh kangmi," the man-beast of the mountains who lived in the snow.

Later, when Howard-Bury telegraphed his reports to Calcutta, he mentioned the incident briefly. Unfortunately, the telegraphic facilities were very primitive and the words "mehteh kangmi" were garbled into "metch kangmi." The expedition's assistants in Calcutta were confused by the term and asked a Calcutta newspaper columnist to translate the term. The columnist told them that "metch" was a term of extreme disgust, so it might be translated as the "horrible snowman" or the "abominable snowman."

A reporter for one of England's most sensational newspapers was in the office when the telegram was translated. He raced for the cable office in Calcutta, wiring his paper that the First Everest Expedition had encountered a frightening creature known as the "abominable snowman." Thus the hairy wild men of the Himalayas were named in error and the term has persisted to this day. When Howard-Bury and his unsuccessful mountain climbers admitted defeat on Mt. Everest, they returned to civilization and discovered that newspaper reporters were eager for more information about the abominable snowmen.



2007 "Yeti" track found by Destination Truth

In the 1930s scientists studied the reports of explorer Frank Smythe's discovery of Yeti tracks in the snow at 14,000 feet. The footprints measured 13 inches in length and were five inches wide in 1936.

Famed mountaineer Eric E. Shipton claimed that he saw similar tracks on his expedition to Everest

World War II (1939–45) stopped mountaineering and scientific exploration of the formidable Himalayas, but in 1942, Slavomir Rawicz and four other men escaped from a Communist prison camp in Siberia and struck out on a "long walk" toward India. They reported meeting two Yeti during their incredible journey.

Sightings of Yeti mushroomed in the 1950s as several scientists seriously investigated the snowmen. In 1950, natives reported Yeti in three different locations, including a sighting by a large group of monks near Thyangboche. A Yeti also ventured out of the forest and hung around the Thyangboche Monastery until it was finally chased away by monks who blew bugles, struck gongs, and shrieked at it. The following year, Eric Shipton discovered tracks and photographed them while on his way to Everest with an expedition.

In 1952, Sir Edmund Hillary and George Lowe found "snowman" hair in a high mountain pass, and tracks were reported by a Swiss expedition. In 1954, an expedition financed by the London Daily Mail set out to capture a Yeti. They found tracks in several different locations, but returned without their prize. Three other scientific groups also reported finding tracks.



Tom Slick Track Cast, Reversed



In 1957, the first expedition sponsored by the American millionaire Tom Slick found hair and footprints at several locations. Two porters said Yeti had been sighted in those regions earlier that year. Peter and Bryan Bryne said they had seen a snowman when the Slick Expedition was in the Arun Valley. In 1958, Gerald Russell and two porters with the Second Slick Expedition encountered a small snowman near a river, and in the following year, tracks were reported by the Third Slick Expedition, as well as by members of a Japanese expedition.

Sir Edmund Hillary, the man who conquered Mt. Everest, created a sensation when he returned with the alleged scalp of a Yeti. Hillary later proved that the so-called scalp was actually goat skin, and he declared that snowman tracks were made by foxes, bears, and other animals that became enlarged when the snow is melted by the sun.

An alleged Yeti, or abominable snowman, on the 1952 issue of Radar magazine.

 (MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY)

In August 1981, Soviet mountain climber Igor Tatsl told the Moscow News Weekly that he and his fellow climbers had seen a Yeti and that they had attempted a friendly, spontaneous contact with the creature. Tatsl went on to state that his team had made a plaster cast of an imprint of a Yeti's footprint that they had found on a tributary of the Varzog River. This particular river rushes through the Gissar Mountains in the Pamiro-Alai range of Tadzhik in Central Asia. In Tatsl's considered opinion the Yeti may quite likely be humankind's closest evolutionary relative. He further believed that their senses were more highly developed than those of the human species.



Almas Type "Abominable Snowman"Track

Russian scientists have sponsored serious efforts to track down the Yeti for more than a quarter of a century. Although each Russian province may have its own name for the mysterious giants of the mountain—in Dagestan, "kaptar"; in Azerbaijan, "meshe-adam"; in Georgia, "tkys-katsi"; while the Chechens, Ingushes, Kabardins, and Balkars call it the "almasti"—each startled eyewitness seems to describe the same strange beast.

The Chinese call the snowman "yeren," and in 1977, 1980, and 1982, expeditions searching for the manbeast set out to track down their quarry in the Shennongjia Forest Park in western Hubei province. In September 1993, a group of Chinese engineers claimed to have seen three yeren walking on trails in the Shennongjia Forest Park.

In October 1994, the Chinese government established the Committee for the Search of Strange and Rare Creatures, including among its members specialists in vertebrate paleontology and palaeanthropology. A loose consensus among interested members from the Chinese Academy of Sciences maintains that the yeren are some species of unknown primates. The largest cast of an alleged wildman footprint is 16 inches long, encouraging estimates that the yeren itself would stand more than seven feet tall and weigh as much as 660 pounds. The scientific committee has also studied and examined eight hair specimens said to have come from yeren ranging through China and Tibet. The analyses of the hairs, varying in color from the black collected in Yunnan province and the white collected in Tibet to the reddish brown from Hubei, indicate a nonhuman source, but no known animal.



Yeren AKA Xing-Xing ("Mainland Orang")

In April 1995, a yeren expedition of 30 members led by Professor Yuan Zhengxin set out for the Hubei mountains. Although the enthusiastic Professor Zhengxin expressed confidence that the well-equipped group would capture a yeren within three years, by July most of the expedition members had returned to Beijing with little more than some possible hair samples to show for their three-month safari.

In January 1999, Feng Zuoguian, a zoologist for the Chinese Academy of Sciences, announced through the state-run China Daily newspaper that China was officially proclaiming its firm opposition to any outsiders who attempted to organize expeditions to capture the Yeti or the yeren. According to the official proclamation, after much debate in December 1998 the members of the Chinese scientific community had decreed once and for all that the creatures do not exist.

"Chinese Wildman" Track Casts

However, in spite of the official pronouncement from the Chinese Academy of Sciences that neither the Yeti nor the yeren exist, anthropologist Zhou Guoxing reminded his colleagues that unidentifiable hair specimens and 16-inch casts of footprints had been found during scientific expeditions to the Shennongjia region. In his opinion, even if 95 percent of the reports on the existence of the wild man are not credible, it remains necessary for scientists to study the remaining five percent.

 

Chinese "Yeti" track on the Left: More Bigfoot type track cast on the Right.

Both types have been found in Tibet and both types have been found on Mount Everest

In April 2001, British scientists on the trail of the Yeti announced the best evidence yet for the existence of the mysterious creature of the Himalayas—a sample of hair that proved impossible to classify genetically. Dr. Rob McCall, a zoologist, removed strands of the Yeti hair from the hollow of a tree and brought them back to Britain to be analyzed. Dr. Bryan Sykes, Professor of Human Genetics at the Oxford Institute of Molecular Medicine, one of the world's leading authorities on DNA analysis, stated that they could not identify the DNA that they had discovered in the hair and that they had never before encountered DNA that they couldn't recognize.

[So Far the DNA tests on the so-called Yeti hairs have been indeterminate. A few hairs have turned out to come from ke or goatlike mountain animals]
The Yeti tracks themselves are highly variable in size and shape and I have attempted to give some sense of this with the samples posted along with the article. Contrary to statements made by others, North American-type "Bigfoot" type tracks do appear in the Himalayas and on Mount Everest itself. The more human sized and humanlike ones are the Almas tracks which vary from less than standard human size to somewhat greater than standard human size: morphologically they are pretty consistent though. The "Real Yeti" tracks tend to be smaller and rounder in shape: some claims are made for "Elephant tracks" which are basically circular in outline, but the general feeling is that the "Circular" outline is due to snow slumping into the tracks or the tracks becoming melted and refrozen. The more trustworthy tracks in this category have an offset big toe on the inside and are "Mittenfoots."

THE YETI Yeti is a biped be known throughout the Himalayas. was in it, where the climber Eric Shipson managed to perform the first photographs of the alleged traces of snowman. Measuring 29 centimeters in length and width 14. Who left the prints was over two meters high. Edmund Hillary, one of the climbers reached the summit of Everest, wrote: "Sen Tensing, one of my more experienced Sherpas, he assured me he saw a yeti. The following year I found a lock of black hair at 5,800 meters altitude. My Sherpa assured me it was a yeti hair and threw him afraid. " Since then, Chinese scholars became interested in the matter. There have been many testimonies which have been encountered with this creature. Zhening Yuan, a paleoanthropologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which conducted several expeditions in search of the yeti, revealed in 2000 to The New York Times that there are probably several families of these creatures in the various regions of China. In Tibet Metoh called kangmi. Walk slightly leaning forward. It has all the hairy body straight and strong, except the face, white or red skin, the coat is shorter in the chest and below the knees. The head is oval and pointed. His forehead is steep, sunken eyes and jaws strong. The neck and back are wide and muscular. The arms reach to the knees and legs are strong and arched. The feet wide, are covered with hair. It gives off a characteristic strong odor. It has nocturnal habits and shy away from the man. It follows that is an omnivorous animal. The analysis of excrement that have been found with traces confirms this hypothesis: they contain vegetable matter, bones of small mammals and birds, and remains of large insects. Have also been found in these droppings three new species of intestinal parasites, suggesting that his guest is an unknown species.

But, as discussed above there are several groupings: The great yeti, called dzu-teh (chuti) by the Sherpas, Rimi by Tibetans and Migyur mountain in Bhutan, is between 2 and 2.75 meters high (7 to 9 feet). It has prominent eyebrows. Its coat is made ​​of two layers: an inner, thick, reddish short hair, and a more loose, consisting of long hairs grayed brown or black. The DNA of a sample of long black hairs collected in Bhutan has been analyzed in 2001 at the Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, with the result that failed to identify the animal it came from. Their tracks are more than 30 centimeters (one foot, some are 18 inches). He lives between 3000 and 4000 meters in Tibet and northern Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan, although possibly the same giant primate, under various names, is known in southern China and throughout Southeast Asia.
probably is related to Gigantopithecus, a huge anthropoid ape of over 2 meters high (6 feet 6 inches tall), known only by their teeth and jaw fragments found in India, Vietnam and China, disappeared in the Middle Pleistocene, about 400,000 years.
The small yeti, called yeh-teh or myti (Mi-tre) by the Sherpas, lower down the mountain than Tibetan, Rackshi Bonpo, Jungli Admi (jungle men) in Bhutan, Sikkim sogpa or shukpa, bamanush or vanamanusha in Kashmir and Bangladesh, is stocky and size of a man, or somewhat shorter, between 1.4 and 1.7 meters (4 foot 6 to 5 foot 6). Its fur is thick, reddish, some hairs, analyzed at the Museum of Natural History in Paris, have been identified as belonging to a unknown primate, related to the orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus). His cheeks are covered with brown hair, flat nose, lips long and teeth wide. The hands are large. His footprints, human side, measuring about 25 centimeters long (10 inches) by 12 wide (6 inches) and have 4 or 5 fingers one of them a thumb.
According to the Tibetan mountaineers, there is a third type of yeti, which they call nyalmo or my-chen-po. It is a giant carnivore, cannibal, 4 to 5 meters high, dwelling in inaccessible caves above 4000 meters and move in groups. Of these titans there is little evidence, but it seems that also found their mark, 45 to 60 centimeters in length. (18 to 24 inches, more likely going to creatures 9 to 12 feet tall rather than 12 to 15 feet tall)

"Mountain Giant" depicted as sleeping Almas-style: this is from a set
of illustrations about fairytale creatures, but it was so striking I had to add it

[There is a confusion between a more manlike and more apelike creature in the smaller category, as is shown by the names lumped together. One is more like the Almas]
http://pedromariafernandez.blogspot.com/2009/09/criptozoologia-2.html (Google Translation)

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

Etymology and alternate names

This article contains Tibetan script. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Tibetan characters.

The word Yeti is derived from Tibetan: གཡའ་དྲེད་, Wylie: g.ya' dred, ZYPY: Yachê), a compound of the words Tibetan: གཡའ་, Wylie: g.ya', ZYPY: ya "rocky", "rocky place" and (Tibetan: དྲེད་, Wylie: dred, ZYPY: chê) "bear".^{[6][7][8][9][10]} Pranavananda^[6] states that the words "ti", "te" and "teh" are derived from the spoken word 'tre' (spelled "dred"), Tibetan for bear, with the 'r' so softly pronounced as to be almost inaudible, thus making it "te" or "teh".^[6][10][11]

Other terms used by Himalayan peoples do not translate exactly the same, but refer to legendary and indigenous wildlife:

• Michê (Tibetan: མི་དྲེད་, Wylie: mi dred, ZYPY: Michê) translates as "man-bear".^[8][10][12]
• Dzu-teh – 'dzu' translates as "cattle" and the full meaning translates as "cattle bear", referring to the Himalayan brown bear.^{[7][10][11][13][14]}
• [This is doubtless a false identification because the name is used in areas where the bear cannot be found. It literally means "That-which-attacks-our-yaks"-Dzu actually means Yaks]
• Migoi or Mi-go (Tibetan: མི་རྒོད་, Wylie: mi rgod, ZYPY: Migö/Mirgö) translates as "wild man".^[11][14]
• Mirka – another name for "wild-man". Local legend holds that "anyone who sees one dies or is killed". The latter is taken from a written statement by Frank Smythe's sherpas in 1937.^[16]
• Ban Manchi - Nepali for "jungle man" that is used outside Sherpa communities where yeti is the common name.^[15]
•  [ie, "Downslope". this is identical to Biabanguli and Barmanu, and probably Rakshi-Bompo]

• Kang Admi – "Snow Man".^[14]

        [Mi-go and variations is used most commonly and considered the most definite term]

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


Dale's reconstruction fot the Himalayan Mehti or Yeti

Migoi, Yeti Mask, the Abominable Snowman, street bazaar, Kathmandu, NepalPhoto credit: Wonderlane
Authentic mask with Neanderthal features, supplied under a creative commons license
"Mi-Go" is the usual specific term for "Wildman" in Tibetan and is more precise than "Yeti"

Chinese Wildman mask prop from movie. This was in a state of direpair when I got the reference photo and so I made a fixup by taking parts off of one side and mirroring on the other: the result is fairly good but still has some problems (the side teeth would never stick out that way but I have left them in there anyway) The rresult is recognisably some sort of an ape with a facial structure close to an orangutan. There is an indication for a sagittal crestthe upper lip has been pulled back to show the fangs but normally should hang dow more, and the fangs are also exaggerated. Please note the eyes are placed closer together than in the Migo mask erent and the teeth on the other mask are much more square and even.

Skunk Apes and NAPES

The Art of Cathy Wilkins-Skunk Ape At Car

Above, what looks very much like a free-ranging chimpanzee from Arkansas and above that, a close-in shot of the facial area in two different Skunk Ape photos from Florida. These photos were submitted anonymously and they are now in the custody of Loren Coleman. They constitute some of the best evidence for the apelike creature called the skunk ape, or in this particular instance the Myakka ape. At left, illustration of Skunk ape raiding the garbage at night, a practice that could very well lead to its peculiar and pungent aroma.




The Cryptid Zoo's description for Skunk Apes:
http://www.newanimal.org/skunkape.htm

Skunk-apes are hairy humanoids sighted in many areas of North America, but especially in swamps, and especially in the South. They are held distinct from Bigfoot by having a different home range (Bigfoot is generally considered as being restricted to the Pacific Northwest) and by having both a different physical appearance and a different set of habits ascribed to them. The Florida variety of skunk-ape is sometimes referred to as the "Florida Sandman" and other local varieties often have local nicknames.
At least two, if not three, distinct varieties of skunk-ape exist in these legends. This is partly because the definition of skunk-ape has varied from one cryptozoologist to the next and because this definition has also evolved over time. Another reason why it is hard to think of the skunk-ape as just one kind of creature is because the creatures in these reports show enough natural variation that it is hard to lump them all together.
The most consistent characteristic ascribed to skunk-apes is the smell. It is generally said that all of them have a rather extreme odor that is nauseating. In other respects, the definition varies. In the past, this horrible odor was the one characteristic used to define a skunk-ape, but today more non-smelly beasts are given the label of "skunk-ape." Some skunk-apes are generally said look something like Bigfoot, but they tend to be really large, and sometimes have oversized heads that look more monster-like than ape-like. Other creatures labeled as skunk-apes look more like a cross between a dog, a giant monkey, and a kangaroo.
The fur color of skunk-apes is usually dark, with many individuals who are black or deep brown, and there may be a tail. When it exists, this tail is often bushy like the tail of a wolf or fox (thus linking skunk-apes to North American devil monkeys). Some individuals are described as particularly big, up to ten feet tall, but the average height seems to be about six feet.
Skunk-ape feet are often described as being different from Bigfoot, especially in terms of the foot shape and the number of toes. Skunk-ape toe numbers are sometimes quite variable, with three-toed footprints often being found.
Since the number of toes is one of the slowest-changing features as a species evolves, it is not generally thought that a primate could have developed such a foot. This leaves a lot of problems for those who hope to prove that skunk-apes with atypical feet are real creatures, because the skunk-apes' feet really ought to match up to biological expectations better.
Skunk-apes tend to be very aggressive towards dogs, and are often reported as carnivorous. In any case, they seem to kill a lot of livestock, especially the smaller varieties such as goats and chickens. Every so often, a panic breaks out about the idea that skunk-apes are about to start eating humans, but reports of man-eating are extremely rare and often based on very old legends, so that it cannot be verified that anyone even died, let alone that an unidentified creature killed them.
All too often, skunk-apes exhibit paranormal characteristics as well in these reports, features that make them decidedly unattractive to cryptozoologists who hope to uncover a new species instead of a mere urban legend. They may be described as having glowing red eyes, or they might be bulletproof at close range or have other weird abilities. Like many mythical creatures, they seem to be mysteriously attracted to anyone who has sex in a car in a remote area. Most of them are bipedal, but they show a tendency to drop to all fours and run that way at times.
Some creatures labeled as skunk-apes seem very much like known primates, especially chimps and orangutans. These sightings could represent feral populations that have developed from abandoned pets or lab animals, and this is the interpretation given to skunk-ape reports by some researchers working in the field of cryptozoology. However, mystery hairy humanoids that resemble known primates are more properly known as napes, short for "North American apes."
The Florida variety of skunk-ape is seen most often in swampy areas such as the Everglades. Florida skunk-apes tend to be more physically normal than skunk-apes found elsewhere, so that some researchers define them as a unique type that is much more likely to turn out to be a real species. Some people think that these creatures smell so bad because they spend most of their time in underground dens, curled up with carrion stolen from alligators. It is said that this underground lifestyle is the also the reason why they are rarely sighted and have not yet been captured by scientists.
Since certain types of skunk-apes often sound more like supernatural creatures such as werewolves or hairy ogres from some fairy tale than a legitimate variety of Bigfoot, and even the more normal varieties often suffer from other weird characteristics that seem unlikely from a biological viewpoint, skunk-apes have a credibility problem and they have received less attention and funding in the cryptozoological community than their more respectable cousins in the Pacific Northwest. Some examples of famous skunk-apes include the Honey Island Swamp Monster, the Fouke Monster, Momo, the Myakka Skunk-Ape, the Green Chimp, the Holopaw Gorilla, the Abominable Swamp Slob and the Everglades Ape.

You can find out more about Skunk-Apes from the following sources:

Arkansas Primate Encounter Studies
Blackman, W. Haden. The Field Guide to North American Monsters New York: Three Rivers Press, 1998. Pages 14-18, 30-33
Brookesmith, Peter, ed. Creatures from Elsewhere. London, Chartwell Books, 1989. Pages 16-17
Clark, Jerome and Coleman, Loren. Cryptozoology A-Z. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999. Pages 65-66, 83-84, 88-90, 224-226
Coleman, Jerry D. Strange Highways: A Guidebook to American Mysteries & the Unexplained. Alton, Illinois: Whitechapel Productions Press, 2003. Pages 9, 11-15, 18, 20, 71, 123, 182

Coleman, Loren. The Myakka "Skunk Ape" Photographs
Coleman, Loren. Mysterious America: The Revised Edition. New York: Paraview Press, 2001. Pages 9, 187, 210, 215
The Florida Skunk Ape
Jackson, Dan. SkunkApe: Floridian Bigfoot Sightings
Keel, John A. The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings. New York: Doubleday, 1994. Pages 98-99, 110
Legend of Boggy Creek
Mississippi Swamp Apes
Moran, Mark & Sceurman, Mark. Weird N.J.: Your Travel Guide to New Jersey's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004. Pages 98, 100
Newton, Michael. Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology: A Global Guide to Hidden Animals and Their Pursuers. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2005. Pages 36, 63, 70, 107, 151, 161-162, 198-199, 219, 317, 338-339, 344, 371, 373, 393, 412-413, 430-431, 436, 439, 454, 503-504
Rath, Jay. The W-Files: True Reports of Wisconsin's Unexplained Phenomena. Black Earth, Wisconsin: Trails Books, 1997. Page 9
Skunk Ape, Cousin of Bigfoot?
Steiger, Brad. Out of the Dark: The Complete Guide to Beings from Beyond. New York: Kensington Books, 2001. Pages 62-66
Weidensaul, Scott. The Ghost with Trembling Wings: Science, Wishful Thinking and the Search for Lost Species. New York: North Point Press, 2002. Pages 153, 174
Wikipedia, The. Skunk Ape
Wikipedia, The. Fouke Monster

Skunk Ape from The Cryptozoologist at Left, Reconstruction of a NAPE on the Right

"The Cryptozoologist" has a four-part series on Skunk Apes but he does not make the discrimination between Skunk Apes and Swamp Monsters-he includes reports which Tyler Stone and I would consider in the Freshwater Monkeys category, and he acknowledges that he includes Devil Monkeys in his definition.
Click on the images below for the links:


SKUNK APES: HAIRY HUMANOIDS OF NORTH AMERICA'S SOUTHERN SWAMPS AND ELSEWHERE - PART 1

SKUNK APES: HAIRY HUMANOIDS OF NORTH AMERICA'S SOUTHERN SWAMPS AND ELSEWHERE - PART 2


SKUNK APES: HAIRY HUMANOIDS OF NORTH AMERICA'S SOUTHERN SWAMPS AND ELSEWHERE - PART 3


SKUNK APES: HAIRY HUMANOIDS OF NORTH AMERICA'S SOUTHERN SWAMPS AND ELSEWHERE - PART 4
Once again, Tyler Stone and I sort these reports differently. Creatures that leave webbed three-or-four-toed tracks are the Freshwater Monkeys. Creatures with wolflike heads and tails are more likely wolves or coyotes, even if they are seen standing upright. But the Skunk Apes or NAPES are the interesting ones and they are not so restricted to the swamps and bottomlands-rather they inhabit a variety of forested environments. It just so happens that swamps are a better place for them to hide out in than most other areas they inhabit.

Above are two drawings depicting the Skunk apes, on the left a more recent artwork meant to show "Southern Bigfoot" and on the right is an older cartoon in a less serious vein meant to show the "Bardin Booger". The usual older name for any such a creature in vernacular english is "Booger" which is a variation on "Bogle", a Celtic word equivalent to "Goblin" (The Welsh is Bwca) and this is thought to derive from an older Indo-European word meaning "A god or deity", hence the Russian Bog. One of the better-known Boogers in the literature just came into the news again: Ivan Sanderson's book Abominable Snowmen, Legend Come To Life mentions a "Gorilla" had been reported in Georgia and found to be raiding peach plantations and leaving a footprint like a human hand but much larger. These "Gorillas" have come back into the news lately and local police departments are out looking for them. Not much information has been released yetnot much need to  report on the investigation so far, but further information should be forthcoming and I shall post it here when we have a better picture of what is going on. So far only the outlines of a very few reports have been publicized and none of the pertinent details have been made public. But actually the situation has been going on a long time and BFRO has several reports on file

Some very old newspaper accounts concerning "Gorillas" were reprinted recently on the Cryptomundo site (these are now public domain as the copyright has long since expired)

Barkerville (BC) The Cariboo Sentinel, October 16, 1869, p. 1
CURRENT NEWS.
Kansas is enjoying a new sensation. A gorilla is at large in Crawford county in that State. It has at different times been seen by every inhabitant of the valley. The settlers have christened it Old Sheff.
Whether the strange animal is a gorilla or a wild man is not decided. Sixty settlers turned out one day to hunt it down but it escaped. It has so near a resemblance to the human form that the men are unwilling to shoot it down.


Dubuque (IA) Dubuque Daily Herald, September 4, 1869, p.2
WHAT IS IT?
A Gorilla or Wild Man in Kansas.
The Arcadia, Kansas, correspondent of the St. Louis Democrat says:
“Aside from the excitement caused by the trouble in regard to the ownership
of these neutral lands, we, of Arcadia valley, in the southern part of
Crawford county, are having a new sensation which may lead to some new
disclosures in natural history, if investigated, as it should be. It is
nothing less then the discovery of a wild man, for a gorilla, or “what is
it?” It has at different times been seen by almost every inhabitant of the
valley, and it has occasionally been seen in the adjoining county in
Missouri, but it seems to make its home in this vicinity. Several times it
has approached the cabins of the settlers, much to the terror of the women
and children, especially if the men happen to be absent working in the
fields. In one instance it approached the house of one of our old citizens,
Wm. Armsworthy, but was driven away with clubs by one of the men. It has so
near a resemblance to the human form that men are unwilling to shoot it. It
is difficult to give a description of this wild man or animal. It has a
stooping gait, very long arms, with immense hands or claws. It has a hairy
face, and those who have been near it describe it as having a most ferocious
expression of countenance; generally walks on its hind legs, but sometimes
on all fours. The beast, or “what is it?” is as cowardly as it is ugly, and
it is next thing to impossible to get near enough to obtain a good view of
it. The settlers, not knowing what to call it, have christened it Old
Sheff. Since its appearance, our fences are often found down, allowing the
stock free range in our cornfields. I suppose Old Sheff is only following
his inclination, as it may be easier for it to pull them down than to climb
over them. However, as it is, curses loud and deep are heaped on its head
by the settlers. The settlers are divided in opinion as to whether it
belongs to the human or not. Probably it will be found to be a gorilla or
large orang outang, that has escaped from some menagerie in the settlements
east of here. At one time over sixty of the citizens turned out to hunt it
down, but it escaped; but, probably, owing to the fright it received, kept
out of sight for several days, and just as the settlers were congratulating
themselves that they were rid of an intolerable nuisance, Old Sheff came
back again, seemingly as savage as ever. If this meets the eye of any
showman who has lost one of his collection of beasts, he may know where to
find it. At present it is the terror of all the women and children in the
valley. It cannot be caught, and nobody is willing to shoot it.”
Thanks to the archival research of Chuck Flood.

and a more recent notice concerning the recent "Gorilla" reports in Georgia, plus some historical background, is also on the Cryptomund site here:
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/bama-gorillas/

NAPES illustration from one of the Cryptozoology sites

El Reno OK Ape Hand Print Found on Chicken Coop

Florida Skunk Ape Track Cast-Outer Two Toes Together

"Skunk Apes" are sometimes reported in (and photographed in) trees, such as in the photograph above. The photo has an enlargement of what is supposed to be the creature in the upper left-hand corner. The ancestor of all such creatures would presumably be the Asiatic Miocene ape Sivapithecus shown in reconstruction at the left for comparison to  the photo (Contrary to many discussions circulating on the subject, we are talking Sivapithecus and not Dryopithecus here: Sivapithecus is the Asiatic genus and Dryopithecus is European. Sivapithecus is also supposed to be the direct ancestor to the orangutans)

SITU_latex_prints_May_1977_Westmoreland Co, PA

At far left is Loren Coleman's supposed "Napes" track which basically got the ball rollong on the serious investigation of the subject. The track was found in a dry creek bed in Illonois in the late 1960s. Beside it is a recent foootprint cast from Westmoreland County PA where such tracks have been appearing for the past forty years or more. Immediatelu obvious is that the opposed big toe is in different places in the two prints. The smaller toes have been added on b the man that made the reproductionpersonal information by an informant who calls himself "Ape-X" that the footprint itself is only an ordinary tennis shoe sole which happened to tread upon a thick stick in the creek bed and leave the unusual impression: Ape-X says the stick is also clearly visable in the photo. This is his statement and not mine. However it does seem that the Illinois track is different to the others in this series exactly because of this unusual "big toe" and would have to be set to one side anyway. This does not negate the fact that this track started the process of stirring up interest in the possibility of a North American Ape (NAPE) much in the same way the Shipton Yeti track stirred up interest in that area (the Shipton Track shall be the subject of a future blog already in preparation)

The photograph of Coleman's original "Napes" track. The other toes at the top of it at least are a complete invention put there by artistic license.

Two tracks from Westmoreland Count in Pennsylvania at different times, another "Ape" track from the area is below the two ancd the colour photo is from Tennessee. These tracks show a general similarity to each other and to the older Westmoreland track in the SITU photo above, which came from 1977. The track in the ground picked out in black paint is slightly canted from a vertical orientation. 

"Hand-shaped" track in the snow and a human handprint beside it for comparison. The photo is from one of my Facebook friends and it  represents literally one of "America's Abominable Snowmen"

What follows is perhaps one of the most significant breakthroughs in this area of Cryptozoology in a long time. I posted this photo of a cast of an Orang Pendek footprint on my Facebook wall and then a Friend of mine  added "This track is similar to tracks found all along the Mountians from New York to Florida" and I replied: "Good man. Not many people notice that. This is supposed to be a more terrestrial Orangutan living in Sumatra and it is completely different than the tree-dwelling kind" Then

the Friend said "A lot of these tracks in my area, OHIO.I call it the EASTERN BIGFOOT" And I then replied "What I call 'Eastern Bigfoot' is different, but all we have is a difference in the use of the name. I fully support this type also, it is the same as the Skunk Ape in Florida"

So now we have something tangible we can use: The Orang Pendek that is a "Funny sort of Orangutan" (a description I heard in connection to the Kra-Dhan and Xing-Xing as of the early 1980s) is the same as the Skunk Ape: and Ivan Sanderson had said that this Orang Pendek was the same as the smaller kind of Yeti, the Teh-lma. It also seems that this equates exactly to the smaller reddish creature Bernard Heuvelmans called "le Petit Yeti"-and to the smaller kind of Chinese Yeren AND to the chimpanzee-like Hibagon of Japan. Suddenly, startlingly, we have independant confirmation that all these things were indeed related, and more closely related than we had suspected before, but in order to get there we had to reject the "Wrong" tracks that were being shown as the most characteristic ones which were keeping the different categories separated from each other.

Map modified to indicate the various types as overlapping in range, and including the new information 

Below are a couple of pieces about Orang Pendek (Again by the way of "Cryptozoologist") and below them are a series of images of Florida Skunk Apes taken from The Skunk Apes official site. There is a problem in that there is the apelike Skunk Ape and then again a more  humanlike form being called "Skunk Ape" as well and that form is going to be the subject of a sequel blog.

This is a photograph of a NAPES up a tree cut out of a photo posted in the Kentucky Bigfoot blog entry here recently. I believe the original (whole photo) is at the Mysterious Kentucky site.

Creton Flats "Bigfoot", Ohio, one of several "Bigfoot" photos that seem to have a decidedly apelike look to them Below are the Skunk Ape photos. The one long strip combines several photos from several sources and so I am uncertain as to how I should credit it.

Moving right along, it seems that the Yeti is similar to both the Orang Pendek and the Skunk Apes, and that the tracks left by all of them are only a small remove from one another.

This shows a witness' sketch of the more apelike sort of Orang Pendek reports and a drawing of its head, both by way of Deborah Martyr. The form of the head is much like the skull of a young orangutan, shown below

Below is a "Baboon" skull unearthed in Texas a couple of years ago and commented upon at the CFZ blog, on Cryptomundo and on other comparable sites at the time. It is not a baboon skull, and only a superficial comparison will show that a baboon's nasal apeture is not in that same position but is further down to the front of the snout. On the other hand it is comparable to the adult male orangutan skull at above right and to the Sivapithecine skull illustrated to the right below.

A mock-up of orangutans staged at different sizes corresponding to the known maximum and minimum of human beings and below are a series of Yeti tracks illustrated on my blog as before (and in the current issue of the CFZ yearbook) Although they tend to be broader, they have the positioning of the digits the same as in the Orang Pendek and Skunk Ape series of tracks. The one at upper left is a wire service photo of a recent "Yeren" track from China, reversed, and below it is the skulls unlimited cast for the Slick Yeti track cast, which admittedly lost a toe during the casting process. this is also reversed. On the right above is a photograph of one of the tracks found by Cronin and which should be considered the most authoritative to date, and the one below it at bottom right is Wollodridge's Yeti track as illustrated in CRYPTOZOOLOGY Magazine.

Protopongo to Pongo. The theoretical more terrestrial ancestor to the orangutans
 has  a footprint more like the modern ground apes derived from it than does
the better-known modern arboreal orangutan

Above is a comparison of Orang Pendek and the Yeti that I had prepared for an unpubllished article
The North American NAPES and Skunk apes turn out to be very similar also.

The lineup again, for general reference purposes, and below the previously-run map for the series of Mystery Pongid reports, the Mainland-Asian and North American populations are now shown to be more similar to each other than was formerly thought to be the case. And at the bottom are another couple of newspaper clippings from the 1930s that a google search also turned up.

1930

1932