So far, all we have as “evidence” for the legs of the
Sasquatch are witness testimony and some grainy images. This makes learning about the anatomy of the
legs of the beast a challenge-and doesn’t leave any theories a leg to stand on.
From images and descriptions, it would appear that like
humans, the Sasquatch legs are approximately half of the total height. Because the creature is said to run, we know
it must possess at least knees and hips.
This should mean that the basic musculature of a sasquatch leg is much
like that of a human. The knees should
bend only one way, and the pelvis supports forward and backward extension. We do not have any evidence that the Sasquatch
can extend its leg sideways from the body, but the lack of such evidence does
not mean it cannot make that movement.
Because Sasquatch is apparently bipedal, we will limit the
term “legs” to be his lower appendages only.
These would terminate in the feet, addressed earlier. Like feet, legs assist in weight bearing and
locomotion. In some animals, they also
assist in subduing prey. This does not
appear to be the case in Sasquatch, although no evidence either way is
currently present. It would appear that
the Sasquatch leg would have at least one femur and one tibia, or bones that
are similar to those in humans. For our
purposes we will include the thigh, knee, and ankle as part of the leg,
although typically in human anatomy discussion the “leg” is only the area
between the knee and the ankle.
In Sasquatch depiction, the leg is in full alignment,
meaning that from the hip to the ankle, the leg forms a relatively straight
line. Additionally, the legs appear to
be more muscular than the arms. This is
a distinct difference from gorillas, as their forelegs (arms) are very much
stronger than their legs. This is
largely due to weight distribution.
Bipedal animals (humans) need to have the bulk of their weight
distributed over only two appendages, where the apes put weight on all
four. These traits suggest that
Sasquatch is primarily a ground dweller.
If he spent a large amount of time in trees his legs would show a bit of
a bow, to allow for better attachment to the tree limb allowing fuller balance. This should not be misinterpreted to mean
that the Sasquatch cannot climb.
Certainly human anatomy allows for climbing and it should be assumed
that Sasquatch would be capable of that as well. Some videos do depict presumed Sasquatch in
trees.
Sasquatch appears to move with what is called a “compliant
gait”, meaning the knees and elbows are bent as it walks. Unlike humans, bigfoot has little “up and
down” motion in his gait, and raises his heel significantly in his stride. His stride is considered “in line” meaning
that one foot is nearly directly behind the other. Die hard believers consider the stride
evidenced in the Patterson-Gimlin film as conclusive, but a Stanford study
showed that humans can in fact mimic the gait shown in the film.
Several bigfoot clips show the animal dropping to all four
appendages when startled. Like an ape,
it uses its feet instead of a knee like a human would. In films where the subject appears to jump,
it is an inline stride jump rather than a broad jump.
The mathematical formula for average stride length in a
human male is .415 times his height in inches. To reverse diagnose that, we can
take a sasquatch stride (usually about 600 mm or 23 inches) and divide by
.415. This would make the creature in
the Patterson-Gimlin film only 55 inches tall. (note that a “stride” is defined
by the distance from the heel of one foot to the second occurrence of that same
heel—or two full steps). Some analysts
of the film put him at 78 inches. In the
first example, this would put our Sasquatch in the relative size of
Australopithecus, long thought to be either an ancestor of big foot or the actual species. In the second example it would put the beast
in the realm of Paranthropus, another
candidate for the lineage. In both
cases, the heights are well below legendary reports of 7 and 8 foot beasts.
There may be real answers coming. Craig Woolheater reported in 2006 that Tom
Biscardi has access to a bigfoot corpse, buried on a reserve in Manitoba. But then, on Biscardi’s website you can go “shopping
for Bigfoot” and for only $35 can get a “Bigfoot Welcome Mat”. There is also the “Erikson Project”, the work
of Adrian Erikson. Erikson waffles on
whether or not he has access to actual Sasquatch remains, but says he has seen
one, and “they walk like runway models”.
For now, anecdotal evidence is all we have toward solving this mystery.
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Volume 28, Issue 2, pages 163–181, March 1968
Primate anatomy : an introduction, Friderun Ankel-Simons, Elsevier Academic Press, ©2007.
Bigfoot exposed: an anthropologist examines America's
enduring legend
By David J. Daegling
The obvious answer is of course that people are using the wrone footprint and stride to height formulae. Upon analysis, this is confirmed, as Grover Krantz noted. The formulae for Sasquatch are different from humans.
ReplyDeleteIf you are a follower of Tyler Stone's Freshwater monkey theory, in that case the footprints are relatively larger for the creatures than either humans or bigfoot, and the creatures which are smaller overall do measure out as having enormous feet for their size. These feet make the three or four toed frogman's-flipper tracks, all toes about the same size, but there are a lot of fakes in the category and something else could be making tracks which look similar to that. You DO get these creatures in Canada also, around the Great Lakes.
Best Wishes, Dale D.