Does the Bili Ape Exist?

[Rishi]

(07-24-2017, 02:25 AM)Sully Wrote: The Bili ape has been reported to walk upright, bipedally 5 to 5 feet 6 inches tall, with the looks of a giant chimpanzee. Their footprints, which range from 28 to 34 centimeters, are longer than the largest common chimp and gorilla footprints, which average 26 cm and 29 cm, respectively.
Bili ape skulls have the prominent brow ridge and may sometimes have a sagittal crest similar to that of a gorilla, but other morphological measurements are more like those of chimpanzees. Only one of the many skulls found at Bili had a sagittal crest, thus it cannot yet be considered typical for the population. Chimpanzee skulls are 190 to 210 millimeters long, but four out of five Bili ape skulls measured more than 220 millimeters, well beyond the end of the normal chimpanzee range.

About this part... 

Do you guys know of the chimpanzee captured from Congo, called Oliver (c. 1957 – 2 June 2012)
He was famously bipedal & lauded as one of the missing link gene carrier between apes & humans!

Born sometime in the late '50s & acquired as a young animal in 1960 by trainers Frank and Janet Berger, Oliver had supposedly been caught in the Congo. His physical and behavioral evidence led the Bergers to believe Oliver was a creature other than a chimpanzee, perhaps even human-chimp hybrid (later refuted by genetic analysis). Oliver possessed a flatter face than his fellow chimpanzees; was in the habit of walking bipedally, rather than on his knuckles, much more often than his chimpanzee peers, until he was later struck with arthritis.

Oliver during the 90s, still bipedal

*This image is copyright of its original author

Now the whole thing could be a scam!
His genetic test found no anomaly, nor was his skeleton found to be any special. Chimps are not hard to train bipedalism & his looks could be mere individual variation. But he was claimed to stand more than 5'5" tall.

But still, the Bondo apes need not have any skeletal or genetic differences & he could have been one of them.

Also the Yaounde Zoo of Cameroon (Congo's neighbour) had a mystery ape too, whom the original photograpers thought might be a gorilla-chimp hybrid. Locals called his type Kooloo-Kamba thought to inhabit Cameroon, Gabon and the former French Congo.

CNN covered it once with no follow-up.

Ground nests & created skulls have been in areas of DRC with no gorillas, but leopards present. That link to an article by Wildlife photographer Karl Amman's work, is the best & most detailed one on the subject. Reply