# Calling all Cryptozoologists

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-cryptozoologists/203797>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 25, 2003, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-cryptozoologists/203797 "2003-09-25T18:04:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2003, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-cryptozoologists/203797/1 "2003-09-25T18:04:25Z")

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Did anyone else see this article on MSNBC?[here](http://www.msnbc.com/news/968574.asp?0cl=cR) about a new species of ape in africa? Is this at all credible or is this just bunk? How could a man sized ape go undetected all this time and nobody saw one or caught one before?

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**Author:** ![Phage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a4c791/32.png) [@Phage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phage)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2003, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-cryptozoologists/203797/2 "2003-09-25T19:57:04Z")

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Africa is a pretty secluded area; it is quite possible for a species to go undetected because there is nobody there who feels the need to catch an ape. I doubt that the discovery is bunk because there is not a lot of reward for finding a new species. Sure, you might get to name it and be in the history books, but if you made it up and nobody ever found another one what would the use be?

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**Author:** ![micco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f8ce5/32.png) [@micco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/micco)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2003, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-cryptozoologists/203797/3 "2003-09-25T22:19:20Z")

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[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=212829](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=212829)

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**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2003, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-cryptozoologists/203797/4 "2003-09-25T22:20:58Z")

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Do a search. This was answered a couple of days ago. Short answer is that the press release is a piece of non-science and a publicity stunt by Shelly Williams. She didn’t first document them last year, they were wll known before that. The apes are hunted by people. They don’t howl at the moon and so on.

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**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2003, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/calling-all-cryptozoologists/203797/5 "2003-09-25T22:47:04Z")

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The best guess at the moment, from my reading of the available info, is that this happens to be a population of chimpanzees that has some unusually large individuals. They are not a new species or even a new subspecies. Behavioral and skeletal resemblances to gorillas are probably the result of large body size.