As another poster mentioned, the “mangy bear” photo was taken just outside of Bradford in the Allegheny National forest. Bradford is surrounded by forestland and has no major city within 90 miles. Growing up there I’ve witnessed many a strange anomaly in those woods from seeing a Black Panther to being stalked by a pack of feral dogs. Bradfordians spend a great deal of time in the woods hunting and fishing. More and more of the residents are now carrying digital cameras into the woods these days and I wouldn’t be surprised to see future photo’s coming from the area. In other words, when you live in Bradford, there’s no need to get your Sassy pics in Florida.

I’ll ask my family who this Morgan clan is and possibly can talk to the individual in question. (the guy, not the monkey)

Evidently this intrepid bigfoot researcher has spent a great deal of time finding and photographing bigfoot in places like downtown Fort Collins, Colorado.

It’s interesting you said that because I don’t know if you are aware of it or not, but the “Wading hypothesis” of human bipedal evolution, which has gained momentum in recent years, proposes just that. Large apes such as the bonobos we’ve been talking about here wade in a bipedal manner. It affords good advantages. By standing, they can not only keep their heads above water but they can also keep an eye out for predators during this relatively vulnerable (for a terrestrial animal) moment. This hypothesis has been proposed as a model for the development of bipedalism in humans as well. There has been some interesting evidence to support the hypothesis, for example fossil remains of a very human-like pelvis in a prehistoric swamp dwelling ape that was unrelated to humans.

So perhaps early humans did develop a strong tendency towards bipedalism through wading, which in turn proved to be a useful advantage in other areas such as tool use or gathering fruits from trees. If the environment made this a desirable trait towards survival, then perhaps as you said early humans made a conscious effort to develop the ability. This, in concert with natural selection towards physical traits that favored bipedalism (foot structure, pelvis structure, spinal alignment, etc), could have made bipedalism in humans what it is today. There was likely a certain extent of sexual selection as well, in the form of females mating more often with the men who were most able to display long bouts of bipedalism.

So your speculating on wading being a factor in human bipedalism is quite possibly not too far off the mark.

To me it is not a totally far fetched notion. Natural selection and evolution is always influenced by the environment, but perhaps you are right and the adaptation of bipedalism was consciously pushed along by selective training. This in turn could have cemented its status as a natural human feature and over time we get to where we are today, with bipedalism a completely natural biological course for us.

It is an interesting line of discussion. The full story behind the reasons for bipedalism and its evolution in humans is still not completely understood or agreed upon, and is still debated. I can see what you are saying as being a possible factor.

Let’s take another example: Increase in brain size in our species has been considered by Science as a result of a change in diet with more fatty acids, brought by the addition of more protein meat. So this behavioral change in lifestyle—coupled with natural selection— brought about somehow the large intellect we all now enjoy. What I’m saying is that the environment might play a bigger role than we currently give it credit for.

Mystery one?
I would say OTTER.
:) :)

Seriously, though…
Yep, definitely Bonobo.
Good photo regardless of what it is.

You’ll see the paper next month. But you are shooting from the hip, sirrah!

Put this in Photoshop. Max the “Stand Reality On Its Head” setting. And have another look. Just sayin’.

You’ll see that it’s a…..um, pug.

Nevermind…