Full title is 'What is the anatomy of a Sasquatch foot and how does it function?'

Article can be found here.

Snippet:



Interesting analysis. Any comments?

RayG

Has my respect for his theory as I have been impressed with podiatrists in general and this one in particular. Anyway, flat footed apppearance is just camouflage fat pad, but arched critters would seemingly then sometimes leave a print suggestive of an arch right? Or would the fat pad in all cases obfuscate that possibility. If not, why ? Are there documented Bigfoot prints with the arch or hint of an arch present? Because of the fat pad or because of some other biomechanic oddity such as an odd knee/hip alignment, could it be the reason why we don't see more arches? This is where my knowledge is zero. I think the midtarsal fails to be discovered in suspected prints far too often so I think it is just an artifact of some other process personally, until proven otherwise. Admittedly, the midtarsal argument makes the subject of our discussion that much more mysterious, but should it?

I don't seen any real revelations there (and personally tend to side with most of his views) but it's always nice to have another expert weighing in and challenging the status quo (in some aspects). It would be really nice to have him and Meldrum debate this, preferably publicly, as I'm sure they'd both be very civil towards each other and the rest of us would learn a lot. Perhaps a way of adding some spice to whatever the next big get together is.

-A

The gait of these creatures is diffferent. With footprints- the right side foot is directly ahead or behind left side. Leading one to think that the legs and hips are very flexible. Just try that and you with see the amount of hip flexion needed to accomplish this. This point is not accounted for in his argument. I am not saying the DR. is right or wrong. By the way, the BF stride is not human like. IMO. Other than that I enjoyed the essay. I am not a foot expert--I may be wrong!!!

That is a fascinating article. Thanks for posting it, Ray.

I think the filmed subject does show a midtarsal break. I've no explanation why he doesn't, so there's not much ta say bout that. Interestin just the same.

Sometime back I noticed a few frames in the P/G Film that seemed to have been overlooked all these years. About 33 seconds into the film(watchin' LMS DVD), she ends up behind a group of trees, the camera gets all shacky as Roger is movin', the images get steady enough for us to get another look at her between the trees, before she comes out the other side(on the right). In these frames we see her right foot come down (little blurry) an leave the ground, however it is her left foot leavin' the ground that is most interestin'. I've pointed these frames out to Jeff M. and he agrees, they show the midtarsal break an they had gone unnoticed. In real time it happens quite quickly. Pay attention to the log on the ground, with it's left end up in the air, pretty much centere frame, it points to her midsection, her legs/feet visible under the (left)end of the log stickin' up in the air. My DVD player has a 6x zoom, so I get a decent look at it, frame by frame.

Pat...

The reason he says the film does not show a midtarsal break is that the feet are not visible making or breaking contact with the ground, they are obscured by the ground plane.

wolftrax,

Did ya look for the frames I mentioned ?

Pat...

Yes, you're talking about the only part that we see Patty's entire body in the open, right before Patty walks behind the log jam and turns toward the camera. Watch as Patty's feet are on the ground, you cannot see them.

Wrong ! I'm talkin after that. Well after 352, after she passes behind the trees an heads to the group of trees an the camera gets all shaky, the camera settles down abit. It is while she is behind the group of trees we see her again between two trees. That log on the ground whith it's left end stickin' up in the air pretty much points to her midsection. You're talkin bout known frames, the frames I'm talkin' bout had gone unnoticed, as far as Jeff Meldrum an Daniel Perez are concerned. So...they are frames I'm a reckonin' you haven't yet seen. Look again wolftrax, they're there.

Pat...

I've always been skeptical of the mid-tarsal break hypothesis, but didn't have the knowledge to indicate why. My primary idea, though, had to do with evolutionary parsimony. That is, it didn't make sense to me that foot structure would deviate in any meaningful way between humans and sasquatch - I assume that we share a common ancestor in which the basic foot morphology conducive to bipedal walking had already evolved. Dr. Eisner's analysis seems to support that idea. (This, of course, assumes a hominid ancestry for sasquatch. The Giganto-as-sasquatch hypothesis presumes independent evolution of bipedal gait, so similarities in human and sasquatch foot anatomy would be probably more a result of shaping by natural selection as they would by common ancestry. In other words, if the "mid-tarsal break" is a real thing in real sasquatches, then it leads me to place more stock in Gigantopithecus than in Homo.)

Sidenote: Modern folks in the industrial nations probably don't encounter this very often, but human feet that have never been indoors or in shoes can look quite a bit different than our pampered tootsies, protected in cushiony socks and supported by a different specialty shoe for every activity. ("Cross training" was such a miracle of marketing!) To people who have never worn shoes, the appearance of our feet may seem as strange to them as do the oddly shaped heads of ancient South American people who practiced head boarding (or whatever it's called). So while we may look at a sasquatch print and see some pretty big differences to our perception of what human feet look like, someone with a lot of experience in looking at human feet would be more likely to notice the similarities.

Saskeptic,

I see far more hominoid physical characteristics in the subject filmed, not to mention from reports as well, but that is just my opinion. From the sagittal crest, the amount of mass at the back of the head/neck area suggests the spinous process of the neck vertabrae would be more errect as in other hominoids. The straightness of the back, lackin' the curves we humans spinal cords have developed, ahhh. But who knows ? Did ya know a chimp can't lock it's knee straight out, somethin we see in the subject filmed. An of course, the midtarsal break, which I for one...see. Intersetin' stuff just the same.

Pat...

P. Beaton, are you talking about this part of the film?

The subject of BF footprints is so fraught with conjecture that I try not to expend too much mental focus on BF footprints, but this new perspective brings up some interesting questions, however I think that when bipedalism and the structure of the foot are considered apart from the rest of the anatomy, we are likely to be distracted by the proposed mechanics of an anatomical process about which we can only speculate at this point,(aside from the obvious need to bear a load and transfer momentum for locomotion) which is fine with me, but I suppose there is more understanding to be had with speculation that ties-in the evolution of the foot to the relationship of it to our ancestors' advantage in having the foot we had evolved at a fairly early time. The human foot is not needed for many of the reasons usually given for why we are upright and bipedal, but it is needed to run, as is the prominence of the enlarged muscles of the glutes, the recurve of the lower back and the stabilizing function of the neck and its relationship to the skull. That taken with recent understanding that humans are the only ape, and one of the very few animals, that can run for long periods without overheating and collapsing in exhaustion, I think says something about how groups of us must have hunted out in the open taking advantage of the abundance and diversity of grazing animals that were simultaneously evolving to take advantage of the great spreading grasslands, savannahs, steppes, and coastal plains of the last few million years. During that time if some groups specialized in the less formidable prey, I can see where staying relatively gracile and fleet of foot, would be a natural fit for our anatomy, where a population that due to existing selection pressures was to specialize in larger prey, using solitary hunting practices, they might have evolved into more robust and massive hunters, as we saw with lions and smilidons in the pleistocene, adapting for a lifestyle where running was important but massiveness made it less critical, and requiring a better weight bearing structure in the foot and ankle.

Well said dogu4. And since we are speculating about evolutionary pressures to change the foot,
I would include the necessity to move through heavy cover in a low profile as one. The ability to
drop easily to four footed locomotion would be aided by a foot that would bend more easily.
Also I think that moving rapidly up a very steep incline would be aided by such a foot. But most
convincing to me is that the tracks I have found show no arch.

olemanofthewoods, I agree with much of that. It's all speculation, of course, but my interest has always been in trying to conceptualize the natural history of another kind of human, one that left the flat lands for the more verticle terraine of mountainsides, heavily dissected land,and in fact forests where an early human ability to run over relatively flat ground was not all that advantageous. I've mentioned at times in the past that for a while I worked for a few years in fire crew in steep landscape, as well as hiked a bit in the mountainous west. Bushwacking up and down the steep forests of the northwest I became conscious of how long it took to take the relatively horizontal trails that are taken, sometimes for many miles to get up into the sub-alpine or above treeline, while only a few thousand feet away, straight up was the same stuff. Comfort with a posture that leans forward, and having relatively long arms and a foot that could better grip the ground would be a real advantage when bushwhacking through chaotic habitat, as would be being 8 feet tall and able to stride over the jackstraw arrangement of 3' to 5' diameter logs, the rhododendrons, huckleberry bushes, devils club, salmon berries, and all the rest of the shrubby stuff that makes walking off trail a bit of a challenge and not very efficient for h. sapiens. One reason I think that detecting BF in a predictable way might be because we occupy the landscape in such different ways, with what are now significantly different sensory perceptions, that our contacts are tangential at best, always accidental or at least not reproducable, and hard to recognize, or make sense of. Cheers.

While I can see the merit in such a line of speculation, I think it presumes that sasquatches evolved in steep terrain - terrain so steep that some serious modification to foot structure was heavily shaped by natural selection. If modern sasquatches were limited in distribution to such terrain - a la mountain goats, ibex, chamois, etc. - then I'd put more stock in it. Instead, I have a hard time envisioning sasquatch as anything other than a forest generalist. These days, most of our temperate forests are associated with mountainous areas because the easily cultivated flatlands have been plowed and planted. But where we do have big blocks of forest, mountainous or not, we get reports of sasquatches. So while people certainly do report encounters from steep, rugged areas, the steady stream of reports from other habitats leads me to believe that steep terrain has not played a major role in shaping the foot structure of such creatures.

I agree, Saskeptic. I'm not knowledgeable on the mechanics of the foot at all, but I do know that there have been many reports of sightings across Ontario where terrain varies from flat in southern Ontario, to precipitous cliffs and boreal forest in the Canadian Shield, and back to flat landscape in the distant north around Hudson Bay and James Bay. In Manitoba, the terrain is either rolling or overwhelmingly flat. A witness I worked with in Manitoba described the fat pad on the sole of the foot as being about 1 inch thick, with the sole being completely flat. If a flat-soled foot was designed purely for mountain terrain, I doubt it would be seen in this landscape too. Which leads me to think that there is some other reason for the foot to appear to be so flat. I do think the fat pad is very necessary for any animal that is walking around barefoot in the wilds.

But how can a seemingly flat foot move efficiently over many different types of terrain, and support the greater weight of these creatures? And how could it allow this animal to move as fast as it's been reported to move?

I wish I understood foot morphology better, so I could visualize how this kind of foot would move mechanically - what the bone structure would be like to produce the completely flat impression in the ground that we see in many prints and casts. I guess I need a picture or diagram to understand it.

Reverse engineering a foot/ankle/leg from a foot print seems problematic with either theory, although I tend to be more in this guy's camp then the midtarsal camp.

Saskeptic, if the dominant habitat over the last 3 million years was forest, I would be more likely to agree, but as we know the northern continents were (still are) experiencing an ice age with general drying out of the climate, more conducive to grasslands which had been already adapting and expanding for several million years before that with the beginning of the Neogene (if I'm using that word correctly...and these days things are shifting around some), which in some schemes I've encountered suggest that the emergence of grasslands (which had never existed in large expanses before) is one of the major chapters of life's long story. But I don't know, and my speculation is sorta focused on this question of how the biggest baddest most sprawlingly diverse and energetic of terrestrial habitation zones could have had all this proliferation goin on for so long and presuming (speculating in truth) that some of our wide-ranging ancestors would have been in it too, just what the ideal hominin to radiate into that niche would be like, and BF as I imagine them to be, and as a lot of people who claim to have seen them say, would be a lot like them.
Regarding the steep terraine component in the speculative evolution, my thoughts are that some populations having/retaining (or even preserving an increased propensity for expressing atavistic traits) a more generalist set of abilities for locomotion, and less specialized to flat and horizontal travel, could be effective whether on steep hillside or in genuinely old growth climax mosaic of forests. Really, when one bushwhacks through forest where it's really been accumulating for a long time you almost never walk horizontally on flat ground but are perpetually climbing and jumping up and down. If you cant just leap over these obstacles, or have some sort of advantage in negotiating them, a creature is better-off sticking to the less-direct but less-vertical trails, which are what most 4 legged browsers and grazers do (mountain goats with their long front limbs are an exception and there are others) when travelling much distance or migrating.
As to current reports of encounters and their correlation with forests or flat lands, I think that one could realistically imagine a scenario where the selective pressures that would cause a BF like creature, adapted for the wide lands of Eurasia, to be fairly well adapted as well for it to enter into the post glacial landscape (whatever it was) of North America (I was going to say "forests" but with the possibile ecological state following the 12.9KYA Holocene impact weighing heavily on my speculative interpretation, I'll just say "landscape"), which were, we suppose, absent of any large kind of predator like these steppe adapted radiation of humans, and so, like wolverines, though clearly adapted to trundle boulders in moraines, they also do pretty well along other prey abundant regions, even without the glacial moraines, and so too, I think, might BF if a population were to somehow persist to today. If they did they'd practically have the place to themselves.
Has there ever been a time since in the last few thousand years when the forests of North America have been emptier? Except for the time just after the natives populations were all but extinguished following the european contact and prior to western expansion beginning in the early 1800s, I really wonder. Cheers.

wolftrax,

That's after she comes out of the trees, a ''known'' frame. Let's see...after 352, she passes behind a few trees an heads to a group of trees, to her right on screen, she's comin' from the left. The camera gets all shacky, Rodger's movin', then we see her come out on the right side of the trees. It is when she is still behind the group of trees, BEFORE she comes into view again on the right of them. As I said, it happens quite quickly, only takes bout a second in real time, that's why I believe it had gone unnoticed. About 33 seconds into viewin'. View the film again, this time when she gets to the group of trees an it gets all shacky...frame by frame it or slowmo it, an pay attention to the log on the ground, pretty much center frame, the left end of the log is stickin' up in the air. She comes into view between two trees, her legs can be seen below the end of the log stickin' up in the air(as it points to her mid section). Just remember, before she comes into view on the right of the trees.

Pat...

This one?

Here?

''Cheers !" Ya got it wolftrax. Now if ya frame by frame it, check out her left heel raisin' up off the ground,back half is up, bendin' at the mistarsals, then comes the front half. What da ya think ?

Pat...

Like I said wolftrax, I can zoom in on my dvd player, so I get a better look, much closer than the image you've displayed. I've also snapped photos of it on the tv screen usin' my digicamera, so I can still zoom for a closer look.

Pat...

I've stabilized it and zoomed in. I'm not seeing a definitive midarsal break here, it is further from the camera than the frames where it is out in the open, the ground seems to be obscuring the foot while it is on the ground, and what is visible doesn't have an apprent bend.

Click to view animation:

Nice ISO Wolftrax. But no MTB that I can see there.

A lot of sightings mention the difference in gait they have compared to us. In one sighting a young man watched it climb up a stump "like a ninja" and down it rather than go around. Many of them have them climbing very steep terrain easily and quickly, in a straight line up. There are descriptions of them climbing up cliffs easily, some to a cave where they later stand and look. They've got to have something different in their physique that allows them to do that, if even greater upper body strength and reliance on climbing vs. walking. Many sightings mention they walk away quickly rather than run, and some of them mention the huge leaps (20 ft.) they are capable of. There ARE a few mentions of running, eg, alongside a vehicle, but not for long stretches. And of course they are supposed to be very good swimmers with exceptional lung capacity and ability to stay under water a long time. It is all so intriguing. Of course no one will know for sure until we have a "foot in the hand" as you could say.

Assuming humans that have flat feet as evidence for foot problems in other hominids implies that all our ancestors before erectus had foot problems. It seems silly to assume that a recently evolved arch is the only efficient bipedal foot or that an animal evolved to have flat feet would have the same problems as modern humans.

It is very simple in my mind. A larger animal can't support an arch. It doesn't live primarily on flat hard surfaces because those are occupied by a much more dangerous hominid. That makes evolutionary pressure that no longer supports the locked knee, arched foot with elastic tendons. Other methods and features will evolve that increase efficiency but probably not an arched foot. Anybody that has walked in thick vegetation or swampy ground realizes that you can't walk with an efficient gait in those types of environments. You would be much less likely to evolve essentially useless foot arches and locked knees. I am skeptical about the amount of flexibility. I seriously doubt they can grab a branch or bend it noticeably. I did hear something that sounded like a truck tire walking toward me at bluff creek. That makes me think the foot is somewhat flexible but that was on a hard flat road so it wouldn't take much flexibility at all to account for what I heard. I agreed with his statement about how the prints were formed that showed the MT break. Much of it was probably just pushing off.

wolftrax,

If you notice just before the front half of the left foot becomes visible, there is what I believe to be a shadow cast by the underside of the front half of the foot. Notice where it occurs an compare it to the entire foot when it is visible, it occured at the middle of the foot. I believe it to be a shadow based on the right foot, note when the right foot is in swing phase, the sole of the right foot is in its own shadow. This to me, in my humble opinion represents the bend in the middle of the foot, the midtarsal break. If ya can provide the two images wolftrax to compare, heel-up,shadow under, an entire foot in air, that be great.
We know our foot has 3 main bone groups in the foot, tarsus(ankle), metatarsus(sole) an phalanxes(toes). Our foot bends between the phalanxes(toes) an metatarsuals(sole), the subject filmed has a foot that appears to bend between the metatarsals(sole) an the tarsals(ankle), closer to the tibia an fibula(shin bone an calf bone) wich is a hominiod(ape) characteristic, thus the midtarsal break. It is what I see, as do some others, an then there are those who don't. No worries just the same.
As for the Dr.'s mentionin' the human foot can cause a track with a midtarsal break (from push off ?), I'd like to see it, cause I've not so far.

Pat...

Here is the right foot raised, is this the frame you were referring to?

Click to view attachment

I do not see any midtarsal bend in these images, but I do see evidence for what I've talked about earlier. People who have argued for a viewable midtarsal break in the film claim that even though the foot cannot be seen in contact with the ground, that the heel position has too steep an angle when it rises, this would depend on the heel being hair covered all the way to the sole. I've said then and now the heel is hairless all the way to the achilles tendon, and this frame supports that.

Here Matt Crowley experimented with a flexible yet stiff enough to hold it's shape fake foot and was able to create the midtarsal break:
http://www.orgoneresearch.com/bigfoot'...sal%20break.htm

wolftrax,

Thanks for showin' the images by the way, appreciate it. The bend (MTB) is evident in the left foot, not the so in the right. I agree with ya regardin' the hairless to the achilles. If ya check out her left foot (I think you'll notice while her right foot is in swing phase), you can see the hairless heel, I can even see some of the inside of her sole of her left foot. If ya look at it frame by frame, or in slowmo, you'll (I think) notice a shadow appear under her left foot just before the front half becomes visible, I think that is caused where the foot bends. If ya don't mind wolftrax, give another look at her left foot, heel rises up, note the shadow that shows up under her foot at the point of the bend, then compare where the bend occured to frame of her left foot when it is completely off the ground. Just for the heck of it wolftrax, put your hand on the table beside/infront of ya, palm down, now raise your palm off the table, note the shadow under your fingers at the bend. It's good chit-chatin' with just the same wolftrax, an thanks again for showin' the images.

Enjoy the day !

Pat...

I've circled the foot showing what appears to be the mid tarsal break.

Click to view attachment

Thank you Crow Logic, it's what I've been talkin' bout. Seems some see it, some don't. It is at that point I believe the bend occurs middle of the foot, thus...the midtarsal break.

A question if ya don't mind Crow Logic, had ya ever heard or seen anythin' bout these frames ? As far as I know, they have gone unnoticed all these years. Jeff Meldrum an Daniel Perez agreed, so I wonder...

Nothin' to be said for ''new'' frames to look at after all these years ?

Just wonderin' is all.

Pat...

I try and be a good observer. But no I've never heard of these frames. I've always been under the impression that there is nothing to see once Patty goes behind the trees until she comes out again.

Look at these images.

The first one on the left shows the right foot planted on the ground. Notice how the ground obscures the foot. We cannot see even the top ofthe foot, much less the foot making contact with the ground.

Now the 2nd image is the right foot raised. This is also copied over to the left foot, and what is said to look like a midtarsal break for scale. As seen, the heel on the left foot is visible, the midfoot is visible, only the front third of the foot is obscured by the ground. Even if any of the foot is bent, all that would be bent is the ball of the foot.

More than than 2/3 of the left foot seems visible to my eye at least. The right foot always shows a dark bottom and provides no information about the details visible on the sole of either foot. That said according to the frame the left foot appears to have a division running across the sole around mid point. If one was to pull out of mid air that this is an indication of a mid tarsal break then it could be reasonably argued that what is seen as a mid tarsal break in the frame in question is either a film artifact or an unrelated detail. But there is a case for a mid tarsal break as seen in the casts made of the Bluff Creek trackway. IMO something was responsible for creating the appearance of a mid tarsal break that is present in some of the Bluff Creek casts and that something is revealing itself in this frame.


Click to view attachment

I've added a photo of the left foot print for comparison.
Click to view attachment

wolftrax,

Can you put up two images for me ? The image Crow Logic uses an the frame of her left foot when it is completly off the ground.

Thanks !

Pat...

Though not definitive, it certainly plants the seed that the foot morphology and track seem to be extremely complementary and contrary to the Eisner
observation.

Here you go, both the left foot animated with the blurry frames taken out and the still frames, lined up at the heel to see the proper length of the foot.

Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment





As seen in the images above, what is shown in the "Break" image is about 2/3, so the line wouldn't be midfoot, just after the ankle, and even though the images of the foot seen in full are not that good the line isn't apparent in them.




Look at any human foot without a midtarsal break and you're going to see a curving in the sole right after the ankle. But these images are not evidence of a midtarsal break. This is a midtarsal break:

Click to view attachment

Bottom row, middle image, arrow pointing at it. That is the kind of image a person would need to provide to say there is evidence of a midtarsal break in the PGF. Not a very easy task, it's subtle, and you'd need to be right alongthe subject to really capture it.

See how it works, there is no indentation in the sole that does it like you guys are saying, it is the foot bending OUT instead of IN while the foot is pushing off.

wolftrax that is a wonderful analysis. I bet Meldrum would be interested to see this.

Thanks Vilnoori, I'm not sure if you're referring to the overall posts or the last image posted showing the bonobo foot, but that image was taken by Kristiaan D’Aouˆ t, Peter Aerts, Dirk De Clercq, Koen De Meester, and Linda Van Elsacker for the paper "Segment and Joint Angles of Hind Limb During Bipedal and Quadrupedal Walking of the Bonobo (Pan paniscus)" in the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 119:37–51 (2002).

BTW the paper I mentioned above, Meldrum's work is referred to in a part of it.

Now show us the sole of the foot. What then is the structure showing on the left foot in the frame and what then is the structure in the print cast? A implies B and A+B are mutually confirming according to the PGF frame and cast photo.

Indeed, but note that in actuality the idea of the "break" is that it is flexible and can be both concave/planter-flexed (like a human arch) and more importantly convex/dorsi-flexed as above (which makes it interesting and causes the famous pressure ridges.)

Yes, and as an example I've deliberately tried to capture this naturally in gorillas and chimps both in the wild and in captivity (with a very good camera) with little convincing success yet.

In a nutshell, I'm with WT (and the podiatrist) that there is no evident MTB in these late frames...or anywhere else that I've seen. It could be present but the film is not clear enough to see it IMO.

-Apeman

PS- for the record, here is Meldrum's published figure where he sees evidence of it in frame 310(?) apparently based on the lowest shading that suggests mid-foot convexity:

Click to view attachment

Thanks wolftrax,

I agree, bendin' out, it's what I see. The bend occurs at the lower section of the foot in the first of 3 images you use (the 1 Crow Logic uses), I'm not sure if Crow Logic quite has it ? Sorry CL . The bend is outward, there is shadow on ground just under foot, as I believe the front of the foot is bein' lifted. Note the area of foot just above the shadow an compare where it occurs to image of foot completely off the ground. Looks midfoot to me. The image CL uses is only the back 1/2 of foot, there is a shadow cast between heel an sole of foot, then another shadow under the midfoot bend.

Pat...



vilnoori,

When I first found these frames, I believed to have gone unnoticed, I pointed them out to Jeff Meldrum. He had not seen them before but said they do indeed show the midtarsal break in the foot. So he's aware of them already.

Pat...

I can see it, but probably not too many people can because the image quality is so poor being so distant. It actually is pushing me more in favor of thinking the PG film is real (have been about 50-50 before, truly undecided).

If Bill Munn's work does nothing else maybe it can at least clarify this element some so people can see it in more detail. I am having a hard time making sense out of the
detailed foot animations.

I can't see a MT in any of the PGF frames here. That aside--What would, in layman's terms please, be the advantage for a creature that size to have a MT break versus a human foot?