G'Day Yowie!

G'Day Yowie! Yowie is the somewhat affectionate term for an unidentified hominid reputed to lurk in the Australian wilderness. It is an Australian cryptid similar to the Himalayan Yeti and the North American Bigfoot.

We get a double dose of Yowie on the web. First, Darren Naish at ScienceBlogs.com's Tetrapod Zoology reviews the book "The Yowie: In Search of Austrailia's Bigfoot."

Darren Naish is a vertebrate palaeontologist with six years of phd work on theropod dinosaurs behind him, he mostly spends long hours in the library, hunched over his laptop.

Naise makes it clear how he feels about cryptozoology--kind of.

"I'm of the opinion that the Australian Yowie is one of the most problematic of mystery beasts. It is, in fact, so ridiculous and inconvenient that it's difficult to take seriously. As if sasquatch, yeti and orang pendek aren't difficult enough...I don't reject the possible existence of these creatures out of hand.

The review of the book is fascinating and thorough, it almost goes chapter by chapter.

At Craig Woolheater's Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman says there has been an uptick in reports to him regarding Yowie.

Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

The Cryptomundo post also includes videos interviews with Yowie witnesses.

EXTERNAL LINKS
"What to Make of Yowies?" by Darren Naish at Science Blogs
"Awash with Yowies aplenty mate" by Loren Coleman at Cryptomundo
Update to AKA Bigfoot World Map by Epic Gilgamesh at Bigfoot Lunch Club

View AKA Bigfoot World Map in a larger map

BigfootHub.com Just Gets Better and Better

Fans, we love BigfootHub.com and now we love them even more due to the upgrade of their site. Last year we couldn't say enough good things about them, and not just because it almost rhymes with Bigfoot Lunch Club, it is the best Bigfoot aggregation site out there. Hands down! It's truly a dream come true for so many web-surfing Bigfooters!

In their own words the goal of the site is:

...to bring information about the very best Bigfoot, Sasquatch and Skunk Ape content the Web has to offer into one location.

We don't want to create new Bigfoot content; there's plenty of sites out there that already do that quite well. Our goal is showcase the best the web has to offer for anyone who's interested in the subject. It is our hope that by providing greater exposure to a broader range of Bigfoot content and websites that already exist, those sites will be inspired to continue to publish new and frequent information by being rewarded with more visitors to their sites and blogs.

So the purpose isn't to rip off anyone else's content...it's to show it off.

We were able to get a hold of the Hub Master at Bigfoothub.com and the Hub Master was kind enough to share their three-tiered strategy that has contributed to the greatest new developments on the site. You can tell they are really focused on the end-user and care about making the best product possible.

We are pleased to launch the completely new BigfootHub.com.

The site has been overhauled for three reasons:

1. Facilitate better back-end database operations
2. Feedback received from our visitors
3. Browser capabilities of our visitors

1. Database Operations
We have moved BigfootHub.com to the Force.com platform. From a database and web-design perspective, this new platform is significantly less complicated, resulting in expanded capabilities (for us) and faster page-loads for you.

2. Visitor Feedback
We sincerely appreciate the feedback provided by everyone over the past few months. As part of that feedback, we are incorporating new functionality that allows our Home Page to updated more frequently, as well as allow visitors to submit their comments on the headlines we post.

3. Visitor Browser Capabilities
Over 56% of our visitors are using the Internet Explorer browser. Further, 1 out of every 4 visitors has their screen resolution set to 1024x768.

Both of these statistics were unexpected during the original design, and the new site both addresses and better accommodates these visitor patterns.

We hope the new site design works well for everyone. As always, please feel free to share your feedback on anything happening here at The Hub.

Best Regards,

The BigfootHub.com Team

Rumor has it they may also repackage our Bigfoot World Map on their site. Which we can't wait to see, as usually we will keep you updated. You can also see BLC is even listed on BigfootHub.com

EXTERNAL LINKS
www.BigfootHub.com
BLC's Listing at BigfootHub.com

New NatGeo Bigfoot Show With Dr. Jeff Meldrum

A new National Geographic show simply titled Bigfoot will air on Sunday January 24th. While not a lot is being said on the NatGeo site, besides the two videos embedded below, we do know Jeff Meldrum and his research will be the primary focus.

When Meldrum talks Bigfooters listen, some would say he is the heir apparent of Grover Krantz as the highest ranking acedemic in the field. Dr. Meldrum is an Associate Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology and has a bio on Wikipedia that continues to highlight his credentials:

Meldrum received his B.S. in zoology specializing in vertebrate locomotion at Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1982, his M.S. at BYU in 1984 and a Ph.D. in anatomical sciences, with an emphasis in biological anthropology, from State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1989. He held the position of postdoctoral visiting assistant professor at Duke University Medical Center from 1989 to 1991. Meldrum worked at Northwestern University's Department of Cell, Molecular and Structural Biology for a short while in 1993 before joining the faculty of Idaho State University where he currently teaches.

One of the telling signs of what is in store for the show is the Special Thanks list in the credits

IDAHO VIRTUALIZATION LAB
PACIFIC SURVEY SUPPLY
IDAHO STATE UNIVERSITY
IDAHO VIRTUALIZATION LABORATORY
JIM HENSON'S CREATURE WORKSHOP
WILLIAM MUNNS
BIGFOOT FIELD RESEARCHERS ORGANIZATION
EPIC SCANS
CONROE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT
BRIM AVIATION
PAUL HUBBARD
BRIM AVIATION
RYAN HAGERTY
AMBER PERKINS
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

One of the most interesting list items is Jim Henson's Creature Shop, where the investigators try to determine if it was possible the Patterson Bigfoot was a human in a costume. Pictured below is a gorilla mask and animatronic head at Jim Henson's Creature Workshop in Burbank, CA.



Below is are the two preview videos along with the captions provided at the NatGeo site.

There's no conclusive proof that Bigfoot exists. Still, experts like Dr. Jeff Meldrum offer some compelling arguments.



Meldrum and Mionsynski take to the mountains of Wyoming, where recent sightings of Big Foot have been reported.



EXTERNAL LINKS
The Official NatGeo site for the Bigfoot Documentary
Meldrum's Idaho State University homepage
Meldrum's biography at Idaho State University