Comments on: Paranthropus News

By: bill green

bill green — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 20:26:40 +0000

hey loren wow informative new article about paranthropus very interesting indeed. bill

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 16:39:44 +0000

Interesting candidate, Manxman. I never really considered it before, but I do think it is definately possible it could be Meganthropus.

By: Manxman

Manxman — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 04:51:48 +0000

Hi all, this is my very first post ever, but I felt compelled to comment on this one. I think Paranthropus might be a bit of a stretch to associate with Sasquatch and their like. Has anybody ever given serious consideration to Meganthropus A/Sangiran 6, discovered in Java in 1941. It is believed to be related to Homo Erectus but was truly huge in size. Meganthropus has been estimated as being nearly eight foot tall (or larger). At various times this candidate could have walked all the way from Java to North America (during periods of lower sea level). Not to mention Java is very close to the Himalayas (Yeti), Australia (Yowie) etc. Just my 2 cents worth , thought it might be worth considering.

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 14:57:59 +0000

Size is an easy jump to make, but why? That’s what I want to know. Why would it evolve in such a fashion? Animals just don’t evolve for no reason. What would be the catalyst for a size jump in the last million years? A size increase is a big risk as it increases a need for food. Would that be the best bet for this species? I think more along the lines of Giganto myself, although this is mere speculation.

By: Mnynames

Mnynames — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 14:32:28 +0000

Alright, after reading all the posts here and on the other one, I’ll weigh in with my measly 2 cents. A lot of evolution can take place in a million years, and size is one of the easier changes to make, as someone mentioned on the other thread regarding Key Deer. Morphologically, BF seems to have more in common with Paranthropus (Or Homo, for that matter), however the path from Africa to the Americas for any paranthropus is decidedly absent, as far as science has been able to determine.

Another poster on the other thread mentions the possibility of convergent evolution, Giganto having adapted in a similar manner to Homo and thus picking up several similar traits, but then discounts this because these traits stack up upon each other to become more and more improbably. I disagree. He mentions more traits that African and American vultures have in common than BF/Homo, and there’s no doubting that THESE are the result of convergent evolution.

Until we have a specimen to really examine, this is little more than pure speculation. For my money, the jury’s still out, but I put my hopes on Giganto. How fantastic would it be to discover a separate line of primates convergently evolving what we like to think are exclusively “human” traits? Not only are we not the center of the universe, but we are clearly not the end-product of evolution, so much, in fact, that nature would have to do little to evolve something similar after we foolishly destroy ourselves.

Anthropomorphically speaking, is Bigfoot Nature’s “Plan B”?

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 04:49:36 +0000

It does not seem to me that this is enough time for it to have evolved so drastically into the form that we recognize as Bigfoot in such a relatively short amount of time. There would have had to be some remarkable reason to cue that kind of development and considering the evolutionary courses of the other animals it shared its habitat with, it doesn’t seem very likely that it would evolve this kind of great size so suddenly. What would be the adaptation needed for it to develop this way while others in the same niche did not, especially if it was doing so apparently well in the form it had? I don’t feel it is feasible. Indeed, many animals from that era have evolved into smaller sizes. It could be a candidate for some of the other smaller hominid sightings that occur in Africa and the southern united states, though. And if they had survived into modern days, could be a candidate for Mr. Coleman’s theory on the skunk apes coming over on slave ships. These would have been very curious to the Europeans and they might have been captured as pets or even slaves themselves.

By: busterggi

busterggi — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 16:40:13 +0000

I’ve got to agree that Giganto was just too specialized an ape to evolve into something like a sasquatch (a yeti is more likely). A pre-human hominid like Paranthropus would work just fine IMO, especially as it would be along with similar megafauna evolutionary trends.

By: DWA

DWA — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 22:37:40 +0000

Dreamkeeper: fossilization is a VERY VERY rare process. We may just not have found the appropriate fossil evidence yet.

Still, yep, like others here, I find Paranthropus a teeny bit teeny for the sas. Giganto still seems a better fit.

By: cabochris

cabochris — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:01:47 +0000

Is there any evidence that Paranthropus actually migrated from Africa to other parts of the world? Somehow I do not think this is the line of Bigfoot. Gigantopithecus still makes more sense to me.

By: DreamKeeper

DreamKeeper — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 19:49:42 +0000

That is a really good theory, and it is a good suggestion about it evolving to a greater weight and height. But if this is what happened, shouldn’t there be fossils of an evolution like this?