I wanted to get some opinions.Does anyone think that bigfoots size varies depending on location? For example, in Pacific Northwest,hes said to be 8-10 ft tall and weigh up to 600-800 lbs. While in areas south and east like Florida,Texas,Nj,NY etc, he is said to be 6-8 ft. tall and weigh 250-400 lbs. I remember learning in school that the closer to the equater,the smaller game animals tend to be bodysize. Think about it,whitetail deer in Texas,have a smaller body size(still nice antlers though) than whitetail deer in Canada,there are some monster deer up there upwards of 300 LBS! Maybe the same principle applies to Bigfoot. Also,the more room an animal has,the bigger it will get.Like the old "fish in an aquarium"-the bigger the aquarium,the bigger the fish can grow to.Also things like diet can effect weight. What is everyones opinion?

Personally, i believe that there are different sub species of the Big Fella..

Much like us really, i mean, if you stuck Shaq beside a 90 year old Chinese Woman, you'd definately see the difference in size, colouring, facial features etc etc but they're still the same, both Human Beings..

I don't think it's out of the question at all & i believe that the PNW Big Fella is very different, even argubly traditional ( Patty ), compared to the Big Fella that inhabits the Swamplands of the Southern States IE FL, MI, LA, AL etc etc..

As far as size goes, i won't go there, no one actually knows even though some think they do & that's a completely different story altogether....

Bobby,I agree that there may be various varieties of bigfoot as well. It's like,all humans are humans,but they are different colors,sizes,and different languages,so maybe Bigfoot is the same.

There was a paper included in the book "Manlike Monsters on Trial" which made the claim that the size of Bigfeet in reports (the ones the author studied anyway) increased the farther north one went and that this jives with a basic mammalian characteristic of "the farther north you go, the colder it is, therefore, more fat on mammals."

Bergmann's Rule

Nice Replies,everybody,I think this is definately a great place where everyone can share ideas and info,without facing ridicule(MOST OF THE TIME ANYWAYS) LOL

It's not as much about fat (though that certainly helps) as it is about surface area-to-mass ratio. Basically the bigger you are for a certain body shape, the lower this ratio is, and if you're a mammal (or other homeotherm/endotherm) that means you are losing less heat from your surface (and more efficiently using your limited nutritional resources), which gets more important the farther you get from the equator.

Apeman

I just read the entry for Bergmann's Rule over at Wiki, which is very interesting. I was gonna say something like "now we know why Shaq's parents were Eskimo", but will say that the notable exceptions and countering examples do a lot to keep the idea in high contrast, interesting and even usefull...and aware of the physical laws that dictate nature's strategies for continuance.
That said, I can easily believe that these small brushy populations of hominids might have undergone local adaptations the way the other notable surviving hominids (hello) did. How it would correlate geographically is hard to pin-down with any certainty since elevation, typical to a lot of the remote west and central Eurasia where we credit most of these guys to live, has almost as much effect as latitude when it comes to thermal conditions.
I'm not sure what the name of the Rule is that is similar to Bergmann's, but regarding island biogeography. It too makes sense as a general observation on size and geography where the but with lots of countering examples.
The rules don't really care what we think, evidently...but there seems to be some ideal scale, a kind of golden mean, for any given process and nature seems to be eternally heading towards it even when looks like its missing it by a mile.

We need the science buffs here to weigh in.I am sure diet,weather,etc all effect size too.

Some good points already posted. I think it would be reasonable to expect to find genetic variation based on genetic dispersal as well as variation based on environment, diet, climate, etc. I can't think of any other species that would have such a wide territorial range that does not also exhibit variations for the same reasons.