Sasquatch Scientific Names
Posted by: Loren Coleman on August 1st, 2007
Harry Trumbore’s drawing (above) of the Himalayan Yeti.
I wrote this paper over a decade ago and have posted it here before, in conjunction with Craig Woolheater’s “Down Classification Avenue With Sasquatch”. With recent comments about the same subject, I thought it seemed appropriate to revisit my thoughts on this matter, again.
Scientific Names for Bigfoot
What is the scientific name for “Bigfoot”? This is a question with a few complex answers.
“Bigfoot,” of course, is the post-1958 name for those (seemingly) unknown hairy hominoids found in the Pacific Northwest of the USA with large human-like footprints and an upright stance. With the Canadian form “Sasquatch,” there is a longer history. First coined in the 1920s (according to John Green and Ivan Sanderson) by the teacher J. W. Burns who for years collected wild hairy giant stories from his Chehalis informants and friends. Burns apparently created “Sasquatch” to combine several similar Native Canadians’ names for these creatures.
Scientifically-inclined and folklorically-related studies are tending to use “Sasquatch” more often in recent years because it sounds more scholarly than “Bigfoot.” Nevertheless, both are popular names and are not formal scientific names. After an animal is formally and zoologically described, of course, it would go by whatever common name it has been called, popularly, but it shall still need a scientific name.
Various scientific names have been proposed for the animals known as Bigfoot and Sasquatch. One of the fullest discussions of this topic can be found in (the late) Grover Krantz’s Big Footprints (Boulder: Johnson, 1992), on pages 193-196.
What Krantz points out is simple. He notes that if he is right about his theories of what is represented by Bigfoot and what is evidenced in the fossil record, no new name is needed. What Krantz thinks and has formally written since 1986, is that “we in fact have footprints of Gigantopithecus blacki here in North America.”
If in fact it is a different species of this genus, then Krantz would name it Gigantopithecus canadensis. As Grover Krantz notes on page 194, canadensis “is a commonly used zoological name for species that are native to northern North America.” A couple examples are Cervus canadensis – elk, i.e. wapiti (after the Shawnee), and Ovis canadensis – bighorn sheep. Currently, canadensis has to be one of the main choices to use.
It appears to be out of the hands of suggestion now. Both Grover Krantz and Bernard Heuvelmans note that these are now formal assignments and proposals, and the zoological world will have to so acknowledge this if Bigfoot turns out to be a Gigantopithecus. If Bigfoot are a new genus entirely, Krantz would use Gigantanthropus the second name for Gigantopithecus that was once proposed by Franz Weidenreich in 1945, but obviously could not and was not used. As Krantz points out, it is still available for Bigfoot. This, of course, remains to be see, especially if an anthropologist or zoologist can make a good case that the genus discovered is so new and unrecognized that a completely new name should be given to one of these species.
Krantz further reviews a few of the possible choices if other findings prove true. Australopithecus robustus is to be used if these hominids are the Bigfoot; Australopithecus canadensis should be employed if a new species of the genus, Australopithecus. Based upon recent practice, the Australopithecus fossils are being routinely relabeled with their older name Paranthropus and some researchers now feel Bigfoot/Sasquatch are Paranthropus. As long ago as 1971, Gordon Strasenburgh noted that Bigfoot would be found to be related to Paranthropus robustus. He proposed the name Paranthropus eldurrelli to be specifically used for the Pacific Northwest Bigfoot.
Nevertheless, because of the standard rules of zoological nomenclature, by the mere fact that Krantz has formally published on this and assigned Bigfoot/Sasquatch some possible names, if they turn out to be any of the various genus or species he covered, they have to be given one of those names. Gordon Strasenburgh’s writings in the 1970s predate Krantz in the Paranthropus sphere, and Strasenburgh’s choice would be the one if Bigfoot turns out to be a Paranthropus sp.
Other scientific names for unknown hairy hominoids (which includes both cryptozoological hominids and anthropoids) have been formally proposed for and related to the fossil evidence. For example, the Orang Pendek has been proposed as modern representatives of Homo erectus by W. C. Osman Hill in 1945. The form of the Yeti that is a “youth-sized ape” has been assigned the name Dinanthropoides nivalis by Bernard Heuvelmans in 1958. The Neanderthaloid wildman with various names (e.g. Almas, Yeren, Migo) found throughout central Asia and allegedly evidenced by a dead body that surfaced and then disappeared in Minnesota have formally been called Homo pongoides or Homo neanderthalensis pongoides by Heuvelmans in 1969, and Heuvelmans & Porchnev in 1974. Beginning with university lectures in 1973, and publication of the theory in 1983 and 1984, I (Loren Coleman) formally proposed that the chimpanzee-like “Skunk Apes” and southern USA apes (which I called “Napes” and are not Bigfoot) should be assigned to the genus Dryopithecus, if found to have the correct affinities.
For those interested in the multi-levels of questions, some final thoughts on scientific names for “Bigfoot” can be found in the published works of Mark A. Hall (see especially The Yeti, Bigfoot & True Giants Minneapolis: MAHP, 1994). Hall writes that the answers are becoming clearer in some realms, namely that of the “Bigfoot/Sasquatch” perhaps being Paranthropus, the larger ones termed “True Giants” seeming to be a form of Gigantopithecus, and one variety of Yeti apparently being related to the Dryopithecus. But Hall has raised some intriguing questions he is still in the midst of answering, namely what of the other hominids that seem to be in the mix? Hall should get credit for bringing to our attention the finds from Greenland which anthropologists have labeled Homo gardarensis (see his Wonders, March 1995). If all the speculation about some of these so-called out-of-place more human-looking “Bigfoot-types” are factual, and they do not turn out to be merely variants on the classic Sasquatch, but instead we find out they are indeed Homo, we may have to dust off the name Homo gardarensis, as Mark Hall suggests.
There has been a history of already giving scientific names to these unknown hominoids. There probably will be other good ideas tomorrow. The answers are not all in, however, because we are just beginning to understand what questions to ask.
Copyright 1997 Loren Coleman
The Harry Trumbore illustration (above) is of the Orang Dalam (True Giant), and is taken from The Field Guide of Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates, 2006.
The cover illustration by Dick Klyver is of Homo floresiensis, a Proto-Pygmy.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Firstly I will admit I am not as familiar with the code for naming animals as I am with the code for naming plants, and I know there are differences. By publishing a name for a new species but by not following the full set of rules – and in this case there is no type specimen – that could make the name invalid and no longer available, so it could be (and I stress the could) that these names are now invalid, it would ultimately fall down to how these things were worded in the appropriate works.
Gordon
Some of the above cited zoologists and anthropologists might disagree with Gordon Rutter, as the standards for “type specimens” for zoology vary, evolve, and change. They are definitely different than those for plants, as animal mobility is considered in the “discoveries.”
For example, a specimen taken and then lost may count, and that is what Bernard Heuvelmans felt occurred with his naming of Homo (neanderthalensis) pongoides. If something that appears to look like the Minnesota Iceman is “found,” Heuvelmans has made a good case for his name for it being formally registered first.
In other cases, photography has been used in zoology to achieve the standards for identification of a new species, and thus the Patterson-Gimlin footage, along with DNA from hair samples and fecal material, could apply…if it wasn’t Bigfoot we were talking about.
But as I have mentioned before, due to the overt negative skepticism given to the entire Bigfoot-Sasquatch question, I sense formal zoological/anthropological classification of these unknown hairy hominoids is being held to a much higher standard.
We don’t necessarily need a whole sasquatch, dead or alive, but the minimum standard is probably the one used a few years ago for the Bulo Burti shrike from Somalia. Since the researchers who captured it thought the bird so rare that taking a single specimen from the wild might affect the species, they settled for photographs of the captive bird and a blood sample taken for DNA. Then the bird was released. This was accepted.
If we find living examples of animals already named from fossils, wouldn’t they get the name of the already named fossil form?
sschapter,
True, if they are in fact the same species. The first modern coelacanth species was deemed sufficiently different from its fossil relatives to merit a new genus as well as species. The possible sasquatch fossil species did not “disappear” for as long a time – only hundreds of thousands of years – and might indeed be deemed so like fossils that the species can be considered an unbroken line. That might be a gray area in cases like Gigantopithecus fossils, where we have only fossil teeth and jaws to compare with the new specimen.
If “Paranthropus robustus” means large paranormal man, I can get behind that handle. Albeit, waaaay behind it and preferably upwind as well.
silvereagle – there’s nothing “paranormal” about it, except in your mind. The paranormal claims are absolutely totally ridiculous. By and large (probably 99.9% of them), witnesses describe nothing paranormal or supernatural about their encounters. The paranormal aspects come from the looney bin where you and a few other looney tunes dwell.
For your education, “Paranthropus robustus” does not mean paranormal man. It is described in the primate glossary of the Online Learning Center as “the southern African robust hominid, dated from 2.2 to 1.5 mya. It was marked by robust chewing features, although they were less robust than in either P. aethiopicus or P. boisei. The postcranial skeleton and the brain size remained similar to those of Australopithecus. It is sometimes included in that genus.”
So, conceivably, we could find ourselves in a position where a confirmed BF gets the nomenclature of Gigantopithecus blacki, and then subsequent fossil finds establish that there are indeed significant morphological differences between the 2 species, at which point presumably canadensis would be dusted off to differentiate them. Interesting…
If Mokele Mbembe is ever proven to be a living sauropod (Not holding my breath there), maybe we could re-use the now defunct Brontosaurus genus? After all, it’s simply too cool a name not to use somewhere…
What did Carl Linnaeus call the wild man of the woods?
Homo silvanus, I think (dont quote me)
Yes, ok, it was a new world creature with many human attributes, and so would be a homo
It isnt a Paranthropus, or a Gigantopithecus, not after 500,000 years. I still like Borealopithecus Americanus.