Does This Look Like Patty?

Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 27th, 2011

The in-crowd of Bigfootery call the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot by the nickname “Patty.”

In this photo taken by Philip Toscano, the 21 year old Ambam, a Western Lowland Gorilla who sometimes walks upright on his two hind legs, is seen at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent, UK.


Does this lowland gorilla remind you of a Bigfoot walking, or of an anthropoid ape strolling?

Thank you Red Pill Junkie.

Loren Coleman 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.


29 Responses to “Does This Look Like Patty?”

  1. Erik Howell responds:

    Wow…damn right there is! If Grover Krantz was still with us he would probably have found it very interesting.

  2. Erik Howell responds:

    I should have said “…it does.” I’ll note too, while I’m here, how amazing the apparent effortlessness in its walking is. He doesn’t strike me as a gorilla who merely *dabbles* in bipedalism. Sometimes, after a few Guinesses, I wish I could stride with such confidence.

  3. coelacanth1938 responds:

    He has uncommonly good posture.

  4. GuRuZombi responds:

    I’m not sure. In the Patty video, the creature walks so smooth and quickly where as in these two videos the gorilla waddles. Perhaps if the gorilla was walking faster the wobble would not be as noticeable but then again, and I’m not sure, but I have never heard of any Bigfoot sightings where it walked on four legs rather then two. But to link the gorilla walk and Patty walk, I’m not seeing it as clearly as others.

  5. Fhqwhgads responds:

    Somehow I expect Granny to put overalls on him and make him do yard work.

  6. DWA responds:

    Wow. Never saw a gorilla do that. But I’d never confuse that with a sasquatch.

    This is just like the ‘bipedal’ bear featured here months ago, shifting to a greater reliance on two-legged locomotion by the loss of a foreleg. Incredible, I thought seeing it. But no one should confuse that with a sasquatch.

    Two things are uniformly reported in sightings: long legs and extremely fluid and athletic movement, significantly more competent than the human norm, much less this. (Sighters frequently compare to human athletes, in particular cyclists and cross-country skiers.) In other words: not a gorilla, and not a bear.

    Patty is a whole lot more graceful than this guy. But she was born to be.

  7. arewethereyeti responds:

    Well, I don’t see a zipper… LOL

    Seriously, what really impresses me is how fluid and unforced the silverback’s gait is; especially striking is when he pauses (@ 0:18, 2nd video) with his right foot held entirely/partly? – hard to say for sure – off the ground! That it’s done in such a casual manner, without any apparent conscious effort, makes me question why the big guy even bothers with knuckle walking…

    With that said, I do have a question: if this particular ape habitually walks upright, is it due to some type of malady/chronic/congenital condition that might force him to assume a bipedal stance? If not, then his bipedalism is that much more amazing!

    Give him longer legs, a little more upper body flexibility, some additional arm swing (and a pair of breasts!), and I think you’re well on your way to recreating Patty’s stroll through the woods!

  8. gavinf responds:

    Does it ‘Look’ like Patty? No. Does it show that an ape can walk upright fluidly and without faltering? Yes. And for me, that is the whole point. It is not wishful thinking or ‘blind faith/belief’, that Bigfoot/Sasquatch could be a large primate adapted to upright locomotion.
    The ape in these (2) two videos shows incredible ease and balance. The first video looks like the profile of a man walking to work. This is what the public needs to see. The possibility of such a thing. AWESOME.

  9. DWA responds:

    arewethereyeti: “That it’s done in such a casual manner, without any apparent conscious effort, makes me question why the big guy even bothers with knuckle walking…”

    Well, this is one …OK, I won’t say problem I have: a number of sasquatch (and some yeti) accounts describe an animal that appears equally fluid and competent both bipedally and on all fours. (These accounts include maybe the most graphic and up-close encounter I am aware of.) As we know that, except for us, primates are more competent quadrupedally, it’s a fly in the ointment, at least in terms of current paradigms.

    That doesn’t mean, though, that there is any good reason to believe that a species of primate not confirmed to exist yet could not be equally competent both ways. (Any more than it’s impossible that the gorilla, the tarsier and we are all primates.) ‘Explanations’ of why this can’t be so rely on current paradigms.

    That said. It has always been…OK, not a problem to me that the sasquatch and yeti seem to deviate so much from the great apes in terms of preferred locomotion. (But then, so does the “third chimpanzee,” eh?) This might be a glimpse into something we haven’t adequately documented yet. After all, until the mid-’90s the gorilla’s fear of water was presumed to limit its distribution in Africa. We now know that no such fear exists.

  10. red_pill_junkie responds:

    [You’re quite welcome ;)]

    There obviously are differences. To begin with, the gorilla waddles (as pointed out by previous commenters) due to the length of this legs in relation to his body, and the fact that he seems to “lock” the knees. He also walks in a very upright manner, whereas Patty is shown with kind of a hunched gait.

    Nevertheless, the first time I saw the first video, I was really amazed, and indeed it reminded me of the P-G video because of the angle of the camera (showing the gorilla going, instead of coming), and also because of the elegant dynamic observed between the primate’s muscular structure, and the fur covering his body —something I still see in the P-G video, despite many skepticism offered throughout the years.

    Now, what I also want to know is this: is this animal doing this because he’s imitating the zoo visitors, or is this another type of “emergent” behavior?

  11. DWA responds:

    red_pill: “Now, what I also want to know is this: is this animal doing this because he’s imitating the zoo visitors, or is this another type of “emergent” behavior?”

    It could be either of the above. It could also be, as I suggest, a third kind: a behavior that simply hasn’t been documented sufficiently. Scientists are finding those in “known” (sort of) animals, all the time.

  12. Jeremy_Wells responds:

    Yeah, he does this effortlessly. But the gait is nowhere near the same. Legs are too short (as others have noted.)

  13. Logan5 responds:

    As noted by others, this Gorilla has much shorter legs than Patty. BUT to my mind, I am very much reminded of her. I am only a dabbler in things Crypto, so forgive my lack of knowledge, but didn’t Grover Krantz make a point about the difference in Gorillas’ feet and human feet, that would account for the difference in gait (I think it was a lack of an arch)? It looks to me like this video confirms this part of his evaluation.

    In short, I am reminded of Patty, but I see some distinct differences.

  14. graybear responds:

    Does the gorilla with the bipedal gait look like Patty? No, the length of the arms and legs prevents that. Is it reminiscent of Patty? Yes. In fact, to me at least, the P-G film strongly suggests that a film sequence combining the gait of the bipedal gorilla and a human and the length of the arms and legs of a human, would look incredibly similar to the Patty film. And that’s about as it should be.

  15. Wulffy responds:

    Fhqwhgads, love the user name.

    Everyone, If this gorilla’s legs were as long as Patty’s legs, they would walk identically. That’s my two cents.

  16. red_pill_junkie responds:

    @ DWA: good point on the “third option” of an undocumented behavior. I guess we won’t know for sure until a Naturalist observes another walking gorilla in the field.

    So many questions, if you think about it. Why does the animal gain with this behavior? where is the motivation? a gorilla is much faster than a running human when it’s moving on all fours.

    Here’s an idea: maybe he is standing up in order to see whats going on beyond the gorilla enclosure. Maybe that way he can look farther away and notice when the zoo caretaker is coming to bring the food. It would be interesting to see photos of the zoo’s background and configuration.

  17. Paul78 responds:

    This truly is amazing, he has been on the news all day, apparently jokingly people said was it a guy in a suit, but the keeper said you can see the gorilla’s short legs it isn’t. Funnily enough a news reporter mentioned his good posture too. He also it’s common for Gorilla’s to take 2 or 3 upright paces, but Ambam walks like this regularly and apparent uses his ability to stand up to mose over the fence at neighbours.

    I’m specialising in Prehistory and i find this fascinating as it’s an insight into Homini bipedalism. Though it is common for animals to do unsual activities without it leading to emergent behaviour, not by mimicking; in reality thats how evolutionary deadends occur.

  18. minnesotan responds:

    I think a more interesting comparison would be the apparent musculature and fat on the back side of this mature gorilla, and the distribution of hair. On Patty’s back there are some pretty defined muscles – and flab? -( per Bill Munns, if I remember right) many people have remarked that Patty’s butt looks fake – droopy or saggy or ill-defined like a suit, but is it just the way her hair is distributed or a musculature/flab distribution we are not used to seeing.

  19. terry the censor responds:

    Articles have noted Ambam’s family members also walk occasionally, including at least one parent. It seems likely he learned it. Don’t know how much genetics helps, if at all; depends on the ability of unrelated apes.

  20. Richard888 responds:

    Hm, I can see why there are those who say that a grown up Silverback is estimated to have 14 times the strength of the strongest man.

  21. MountDesertIslander responds:

    Get your hands off of me, you damn dirty ape!

  22. Paul78 responds:

    Even if this was emergent behaviour and the zoo and being in the UK creates an artificial bottleneck separating them from the main population meaning it would only spread through Ambam’s group, but this is just a unique behavioural pattern and though evolutionary dead ends are commonly Mutations they are also unusual behavioural differences; to consider this emergent behaviour because it is unusual would me the definition would be thrown out the window if you factored humans into it. My Evolutionary Anthropology classmates just think he is great as is a kind of window to our own past, it was said he adapted to walking upright so he could carry his food more easily.

  23. skimmer responds:

    The hair pattern is definitely similar. Its interesting to note the way the hair at the gorilla’s waist forms a distinct line between the torso and hips–creating a belt line–in much the same way as a line appears on the patterson creature. Now–let’s say you were unfamiliar with gorilla’s and suspected that this animal was in fact a man dressed in a hairy suit. What support could you give that it was a hoax? Well, it looks like the creature is wearing pants! You can clearly see the margins of the over coat and there are unusual folds which might indicate a zipper. And–it walks too much like a man.

    I’m struck by the way the gorilla lifts its feet when it walks. It doesn’t seem to want to hyper extend its toes too much and the trailing foot lifts abruptly presumably before too much flexing can take place. The closest gait I can get is that it appears to walk like that of a human toddler–but with more natural expertise. Although the Patterson creature doesn’t walk like this (it appears to walk more like an adult human), it does seem to have the same abrupt lift of the trailing foot–as if it too is avoiding to much hyper-flexing of the toes at the end of the stride.

    This is fascinating and it does appear to support the idea that the Patterson/Gimlin creature as a unknown primate.

  24. norman-uk responds:

    This is a really interesting film and it demonstrates a source which should make a valuable reference for further study of bipedal walking in relation to Patty in particular and sasquatch in general. To my mind it confirms Mrs Patty is not just a man in a suit but some sort of ape human intermediate. I was struck by the way the sole of the foot is shown in some of these films of this walking ape as in the Patterson film. One can see how physique leads to different ways of walking and Patty’s walk and her her physique are a match.

    My impression is that the Ambam is mimicking humans and that he waddles only slightly too look more like a man walking and succeeds admirably. Does this give him a higher status?

    Then there’s this little fellow, so natural!

  25. FeralThrowback responds:

    The thing that strikes me is the similarity of musculature on Patty and Ambam, especially the back. I remember reading about supposed zipper lines and such seen by some on Patty. Somehow I don’t think that the lines on Ambam are from a zipper. I am by no means an anatomist, but that caught my eye.

  26. minnesotan responds:

    I think it’s interesting he has all this thick hair on the backs of the thighs, similar actually to where some dogs have a lot of thick hair, must serve a purpose.

  27. sausage1 responds:

    er, no.

  28. mystery_man responds:

    A lot of people commenting here are pointing out the differences between this gorilla and Patty, such as the fact that gorillas have shorter legs or how the gorilla waddles more, however I think that is sort of missing the point of this comparison.

    Of course a gorilla is going to waddle or walk differently. With a gorilla, we are talking about an animal that has not evolved full bipedalism to the extent that a Sasquatch like Patty seems to have done. A creature like Patty has obviously evolved to be a fully bipedal animal and therefore it is going to display a great many adaptations in order to accomplish this such as longer legs, a different pelvic structure, different spinal alignment and head placement, among others.

    So yeah, a Sasquatch, if we are to assume it is an animal adapted to bipedalism, is going to have longer legs and a smoother walk. From what we see in the PG footage, if we take that and other reports as indicative of typical Sasquatch locomotion, then we are looking at a creature evolved along a different path than gorillas and pointing out those differences is a moot point in my opinion. Comparing the difference in leg length of a bipedal, upright animal like Patty with an animal that has evolved to be predominantly quadrupedal like a gorilla that happens to have picked up the habit of walking around, is like comparing apples and oranges. Differences are to be expected.

    What I think is important here and is the reason this comparison was proposed is because of all of the similarities the two seem to have. The thick musculature, broad shoulders and neck, seemingly similar hair pattern, and the sagittal crest which is apparent on Patty as well are all hallmarks of a large great ape. If that is what Sasquatch are, then those similarities are important to consider and could give us insight into what Patty is (if anything), and how it may have evolved.

    Take all of these similarities and evolve it into a more fully bipedal animal, and you could get something very much like Patty. I think that’s the gist of this post.

    Concerning this gorilla, these cases of spontaneous bipedalism in animals is not unheard of. It has happened with chimps and other animals that are not typically bipedal as well. The reasons for the animals doing so are varied. Maybe this gorilla wanted to see over the fence and started walking around more and more often as it got easier. Or maybe it wanted to grab food more easily and keep both hands free. Maybe it is just doing it for the heck of it, who knows.

    Whatever the reason, this was a learned behavior, not something it’s species has evolved to do. As a result, gorillas lack the skeletal structure, foot structure, and overall morphology to walk as smoothly as something like humans or what Patty seems to be. There are a great many adaptations that converge to create a bipedal animal, so this gorilla is not ever going to be quite as good a walker as a person or Patty. I wouldn’t be too surprised to find other gorillas that have learned to do this, but bipedalism to this extent in gorillas is still a learned behavior and not something their bodies are really adapted to do.

    Anyway, overall a great discussion so far.

  29. Creationscienceoutreach responds:

    This behaviour seems to have made the headlines because it is something not generally displayed in gorillas (either lowland or mountain), but is known more usually in chimps, gibbons and proboscis monkeys.

    I remember a certain macaque that took to walking upright and also did the rounds in the media. I think people like to gawp at things like this due to an underlying fascination with the anthropomorphism of it, rather than to seek any great insights.

    What interests me is the gliding gait similar to that observed in sasquatch, rather than the human plantigrade motion – sasquatch are in my opinion great apes that exhibit quadrapedalism as juveniles, but due to the impracticalities of their adult size take to bipedialism, which they are better designed for than gorillas.

    This should point even more strongly to sasquatch/bigfoot/skunk ape/yeti/mande burung etc being great apes, particularly if you add the weight of observed behaviour such as nest building/wood knocking/stone throwing and other behaviour akin to other great apes.

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