Showing posts with label io9. Show all posts
Showing posts with label io9. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Porcupines can help find Bigfoot



This story was originally posted by Cryptomundo.com, then reposted io9.com. I thought the headline was too good to resist and the story too clever not too share.

The gist of the story at Cryptomundo.com is to explain why we have never found a Bigfoot body or bones, but there is a second half that is more fascinating. The idea that porcupines eat bones and sometimes store them. I like the idea that somewhere, in a porcupine nest, is the dead sea scroll version of Bigfoot evidence. All we need is a goat herder to throw a stone to find them.

Below is an excerpt pertaining just to the porcupine part of the equation.

One important behavior of some species of porcupines is that they hoard bones of other animals in or around their dens. Porcupines sometimes are found with bones in their living spaces. For example, the North African crested porcupine (Hystrix cristata) and the Cape porcupine (Hystrix africaeaustralis) of sub-Saharan Africa, especially in areas deficient in phosphorous, will practice osteophagia, or gnawing on bones. These porcupines will often accumulate large piles of bones in their dens . . . In North America, studies of situations in which bones accumulate today and in the past often include porcupine caves. For an intriguing article on what Pleistocene mammal remains were found in one such gathering of bones, see "Bears and Man at Porcupine Cave, Western Uinta Mountains, Utah" by Timothy H. Heaton, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, in Current Research in the Pleistocene, vol. 5, pp. 71-73 (1988).

The odds are more highly in favor of Bigfoot bones and bodies never being found . . . But if they are ever found, Bigfoot teeth or old bones possibly might be discovered near or in porcupine habitation sites . . . We won't know unless we look, and reexamine past and future "unidentified" finds from porcupine caves, digs, and dens.



To see the original Cryptomundo post click here
To see the io9.com post click here.



Please read our terms of use policy.