Latest Bigfoot "evidence"

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Nope. Shawn from Big**** Evidence was the first to say "Take THAT, skeptics!"

What a bonehead. He knows nothing of the history of cryptozoology (only been on the Bigfoot blog beat for about 3 years) and even less about science. Pooh-poohing skeptics in this way is a red flag for ignorance.

But as with olinguito, which pop crypto people also hyped, they fail to realize exactly what you pointed out, that this is a TERRIBLE sign for cryptids. Science is being done in museums, not by sitting in tents in the woods or with thermal imaging cameras.

http://doubtfulnews.com/2013/12/new...largest-new-animal-named-so-far-this-century/

And just for fun - there was another tapir-related Bigfoot story from Malaysia this week. http://doubtfulnews.com/2013/12/not-bigfoot-prints-in-malaysia/
 
We have a whole new thread now devoted to the tapir.

Sharon, you used pics of New World tapirs for your article on Malaysian tapirs.
 
Gotta love the esoteric knowledge here. There would be no way I could tell the different between New World and Southeast Asian tapirs. But I can identify a tapir, at least.
 
idoubtit said:
But as with olinguito, which pop crypto people also hyped, they fail to realize exactly what you pointed out, that this is a TERRIBLE sign for cryptids. Science is being done in museums, not by sitting in tents in the woods or with thermal imaging cameras.
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So many if not most of the really newly found species are come upon in the field by scientists not in the museum. These people take the specimens back to the museum because they decided (while in the field) that they probably or certainly collected a "new species". Think about new little monkeys, reptiles, amphibians, rodents, etc.
 
idoubtit said:
Gotta love the esoteric knowledge here. There would be no way I could tell the different between New World and Southeast Asian tapirs. But I can identify a tapir, at least.
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Go look at a picture of a Malaysian tapir to see that there is a MAJOR difference in coloration.
 
William Parcher said:
So many if not most of the really newly found species are come upon in the field by scientists not in the museum. These people take the specimens back to the museum because they decided (while in the field) that they probably or certainly collected a "new species". Think about new little monkeys, reptiles, amphibians, rodents, etc.
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It's a combined effort. Fieldwork is done by either independent researchers (I fall into this category) or by organized field expiditions led by members of a particular museum, college, or other institution (usually for a very specific purpose). Us field grunts collect the interesting stuff and ship it off to a museum. For independent researchers, we have to find museums willing to curate the stuff; for the field expiditions led by members of museum staff, it's a lot easier (they sort of default to doing the curation themselves).

Often during field work there isn't time or resources to do proper identifications. We do what we can, but we don't make a huge push to classify things to the species or even genus level most of the time. It takes too long and typically requires getting one's hands on comparison material. I keep a small collection of bones and skulls in my office for exactly that purpose--but NO ONE lets you take this stuff into the field. Even if you wanted to do identification with just the literature, even with today's technology it's not possible. Step 1 is tracking the stuff down--which often requires fun things like learning a bit of Latin, German, and Spanish. Plus a lot of the references aren't digital, and carrying around textbooks gets old fast.

So what happens is us field grunts give the specimens tentative identifications in the field, then ship them to a museum where they can be more precisely identified. The museum staff have the time, materials, and resources to do so, and have libraries that have been built over the tenure of multiple curators most of the time.

Long story short, real science requires both field work and lab/library work. There's simply no excuse to NOT include both in one's research this day and age.

idoubtit said:
Gotta love the esoteric knowledge here. There would be no way I could tell the different between New World and Southeast Asian tapirs. But I can identify a tapir, at least.
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This is another reason. I can identify a lot of stuff, but it still amazes me when someone picks up a horse wrist bone and goes "Oh, this is from species _____" as if it were obvious. Division of labor and all that; I prefer ecological and taphonomic issues, myself.
 
People usually know what they’re talking about when it comes to the animals that live in their own backyard. For years, however, scientists ignored locals in the Amazon who said there was not one but two species of tapir—a large mammal that slightly resembles a pig—roaming the forest, Mongabay reports. Now, science has caught up to what the locals knew all along. Authors of a recent research paper finally paid attention and discovered that a new species of tapir does indeed exist.

Four other species of tapirs are found in the Amazon and in Southeast Asia, but a new one hasn’t been discovered since 1865. The new tapir, dubbed Tapirus kabomani, is the smallest of the bunch but still counts as one of the largest mammals found in South America.

Mongabay elaborates:

Found inhabiting open grasslands and forests in the southwest Amazon (the Brazilian states of Rondônia and Amazonas, as well as the Colombian department of Amazonas), the new species is regularly hunted by the Karitiana tribe who call it the “little black tapir.” The new species is most similar to the Brazilian tapir (Tapirus terrestris), but sports darker hair and is significantly smaller: while a Brazilian tapir can weigh up to 320 kilograms (710 pounds), the Kabomani weighs-in around 110 kilograms (240 pounds). Given its relatively small size it likely won’t be long till conservationists christen it the pygmy or dwarf tapir. It also has shorter legs, a distinctly-shaped skull, and a less prominent crest.
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/sma...-new-species-of-tapir-locals-say-we-told-you/
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Not evidence of Bigfoot by any means, but it just goes to show that there could still be large undiscovered mammals on the planet.
 
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OntarioSquatch said:


Not evidence of Bigfoot by any means, but it just goes to show that there could still be large undiscovered mammals on the planet.
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Do you not get the fact that it WAS DISCOVERED!?!?

It was killed, quartered and eaten thousands of times by humans over the last few hundred years. They kept a few skulls laying around. Teddy Roosevelt went to the AMAZON ONE TIME, and killed one. He declared it must be a new species. The evidence sat on a shelf for a hundred years. The first time an American Explorer went down there, he killed one, and ID'd it as a new species.

Nobody does that with Bigfoot.
 
OntarioSquatch said:


Not evidence of Bigfoot by any means, but it just goes to show that there could still be large undiscovered mammals on the planet.
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Ontario, please read closely: NO. You have missed the point entirely.

The "new" tapir species was not a large, undiscovered mammal. It is a large mammal that was "discovered" by at least the early 18th Century. The new paper proposes that one population of that species is better considered by us to be a distinct species. This isn't a discovery of a new large mammal, it's a discovery of traits within a population of that large mammal that warrant a reclassification from one species to two.

Please check out the tapir thread.
 
idoubtit said:
Nope. Shawn from Big**** Evidence was the first to say "Take THAT, skeptics!"

What a bonehead. He knows nothing of the history of cryptozoology (only been on the Bigfoot blog beat for about 3 years) and even less about science. Pooh-poohing skeptics in this way is a red flag for ignorance...
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OntarioSquatch said:
Not evidence of Bigfoot by any means, but it just goes to show that there could still be large undiscovered mammals on the planet.
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Ouch...

Drewbot said:
Do you not get the fact that it WAS DISCOVERED!?!?...
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The Shrike said:
Ontario, please read closely: NO. You have missed the point entirely...
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GT/CS said:
HJFC I can't believe you wrote that!!!!!
Oh, I get it, you're kidding. Good one!
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OntarioSquatch said:
lol looks like you guys are right. It was just a matter of identification, not a real discovery.
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:covereyes
 
OntarioSquatch said:
lol looks like you guys are right.
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Gee, thanks. So glad to have earned your seal of approval.

Here's an important part of critical thinking: You don't make a definitive statement about something until you've taken the time to know what the heck it is. In the case of the newly described tapir species, it would appear that neither you nor the people at "Bigfoot Evidence" or whatever that site was took the time to even read the press release. If you had, it would have been obvious to you that this was not some large mammal existing undiscovered until some recent time. If you did read it and didn't understand the content, then you might need to work on some reading comprehension skills.

Please go to the tapir thread, OS. Read the first post explaining exactly what this "discovery" is all about. Then go read about what the bigfooters are saying about it and see how wrong they are.
 
OntarioSquatch said:


Not evidence of Bigfoot by any means, but it just goes to show that there could still be large undiscovered mammals on the planet.
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There are no large mammals on the planet that are being seen regularly, but can't be discovered. If the large animals people claim to see are real, they would have been discovered already.
 
For the life of me I have no idea why people bring up mountain gorillas in a discussion about cryptids. They have a lot in common with tapirs, in that the mountain gorilla population is entirely surrounded by a contiguous population of lowland gorillas. Or at least, they were when westerners first went there. So when westerners first went to the area, there were gorillas everywhere: in the lowlands, and up the mountains. They wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between western lowland, eastern lowland, and mountain varieties, until they actually had dead ones side-by-side. In the same way as this new tapir wasn't recognised as a different species for years, the first explorers in central Africa would have thought that there was just one species of gorilla.
 
I fear for the human race.

I truly do.

Go read a book or learn to tie your shoelaces.
Magic monkey men don't exist.
 
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