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Janoan Sasquatch confirmed?

Sasquatch Confirmed? I think so, but let’s talk about why. Or for the impatient, TL;DR at the end. Onward…

With the most recent Janoan Armor renderings, we can see this sexy sexy helmet. A few people in the thread started talking about how it looks like a gorilla skull, and I wanted to type something up, because I’m the kind of nerd who’s been thinking about this since I first saw the concept art a few months ago. I’d like to say that in the concept at it definitely looks like a gorilla skull, but in the rendered image it’s significantly different, and I wanted to talk about why.

Here’s the helmet I’m discussing.

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Here’s the picture with a few details highlighted.

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You can see I’ve highlighted 4 parts. I’ll break them down individually, but in short, this is 100% an ape skull, but not a gorilla skull. Pic for reference, with explanation below.

Imgur 1) Nuchal Crest. This feature is where neck muscles attach. Humans have a very small nuchal area, in part because we are bipedal. Our heads don’t require much to keep them from tipping forward. A quadrupedal animal like a gorilla requires more bone area for muscles to attach to stabilize the head. This feature is significantly smaller than the nuchal crest seen in a gorilla skull, but does fit with an animal that has a forward leaning posture, or extremely robust neck muscles.

2) Sagittal Crest. If you put your fingers over your temple and clench your jaws, you can feel these muscles work. The more bone surface available for muscle to attach to, the more chewing strength you have. Now imagine you have a ridge of bone on the top of your head for those muscles to attach to. That’s a sagittal crest in a nutshell. It allows more bite strength on the same size skull. It’s perfect for a diet consisting of tough, fibrous vegetation, just like we expect a gorilla to eat. Humans don’t have one, nor do any of the varieties of Mann that we know of so far, which (Sadly) excludes this skull from belonging to a Yoru based on their heads seeming to be rather flat. Pic below.

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3) Brow Ridge and binocular vision. Humans have under developed brow ridges, as do most of the races of Mann. The To’Resk look like they may have a small one, and the Yoru look like they may have a rather large one. Unfortunately for the above stated reason, I don’t think this skull belong to a Yoru. You know what does have a lovely brow ridge like that though? Apes. Binocular vision gives us depth perception, which is useful for hunting in predatory animals, or accurately grasping branches. Again, more ape features.

4) A muzzle and fangs?? The fangs don’t necessarily mean it’s a predator (See the gorilla skull picture, which clearly shows large fangs dispite gorillas being herbivores). It also seems to have a muzzle, which once again excludes Yoru (I’m still kinda sad this doesn’t show Janoans preying on the Yoru), but it puts it directly in the realm of ape again.

5) I didn’t highlight this, but can we just appreciate just how large this animals brain cavity is? An entire Janoan head fits inside it, and Janoans are large to begin with. Gorillas have small brains (You can see the narrow space it’s brain would fit above), where as humans have very bulbous skulls. The animal pictured here also has a round skull like a human, which means it either has an abnormally thick skull, or it’s got a large brain.

TL;DR

Any of these traits individually means nothing, but all 5 combined means that we are looking at an animal who’s morphology strongly resembles an extremely large, powerful, ape like animal with the capacity for intelligence. I used sasquatch as a joke in the title, but we have every reason to expect a 10-12 foot tall, either fully or semi bipedal ape like animal to be roaming the Janoan forests. Given that the rest of the Janoan Heavy armor’s upper portion seems to be made out of multiples of this same animal’s skull, they may even roam in packs. Let’s hope the teeth really do point to a Gorilla-like diet, otherwise we’re all gonna get eaten the second we leave town!


12/8/2018 8:47:27 PM #1

I don't disagree with most of your logic, except the large brain cavity being an indication of the capacity of intelligence. I think it is an assumption people make that a larger brain means a larger intellect.

I do think it is a large cavity instead of a thick skull (as the Janoan's head fits in the cavity) but I do not think that a large brain cavity means we are looking at an intelligent species (although still possible I admit)

Aside from that, I am expecting this to be first quite a fearsome creature, and second another one of SbS hybrid theory animals like the otterbear. At the very least, it might be an ape type that evolved from a different evolutionary chain than Mann did.

I'm looking forward to seeing our first sasquatch hunters running across this GorillaSloth lookin guy, and the ensuing battle. From a distance though.. A far off distance.


12/8/2018 9:09:58 PM #2

I definitely agree! That's what I meant by capacity for intelligence. Not necessarily that is is intelligent, but that the possibility is there. It has what appears to be a large brain case in relation to the other features of the skull, especially compared to a gorilla, which would fall into my definition of intelligent. I'm not saying it uses tools and makes fire, but maybe it can figure out how to throw rocks to make you look towards the source of the sound while it's sneaking up on you :)

I'm hoping for a hybrid animal, too. I really enjoy how the animals end up being very unique and grandiose, yet also somewhat familiar.


12/9/2018 8:12:06 AM #3

I wonder at the ability of such animals to have enough space to survive in the Janoan biome, given the ferocity of the Janoa. I would have thought any competitors would have been hunted to extinction, especially if their body parts were in demand for means to boast of high status and wage war.

It is also curious that the incisors of the creature used for the helmet do not meet, but form a large gap between the upper and lower jaw. This leads me to question whether the upper and lower jaws come from the same creature. Although perhaps the incisors were originally much larger and were ground or filed down to improve the wearer's field of view; a similar modification may have been made to the sides of the jaws, which shouldn't have so much empty space.

I think the creature, if it is a single creature, is a gigantopithecus analog.


12/9/2018 10:10:50 AM #4

Amazing post, I love it. This shows how good in hunting the Janoan will be. The Rainforest will be a difficult and challenging biome.


12/9/2018 1:03:55 PM #5

Your right, brain size does not equivocate to intelligence based on human conceptualizations. For example, both dolphins and elephants (and hundreds of other species) have larger brains than humans, however humans are thought to be the most intelligent. This is because other animals brains, while larger are either not as folded (increasing gray matter), or because they are highly specialized. Take the dolphin for example, their brains by weight and density of gray matter would suggest a massively superior intelligence. However the majority of their brain is dedicated to processing Sonar. Likewise, a small brain doesn't mean an animal is unintelligent based on human measures of intelligence. Many bird species have profoundly good problem solving skills, memory and recall, and other traits associated with intelligence, while also having some of the smallest brains.


12/10/2018 2:58:33 AM #6

Posted By Poldano at 12:12 AM - Sun Dec 09 2018

I wonder at the ability of such animals to have enough space to survive in the Janoan biome, given the ferocity of the Janoa. I would have thought any competitors would have been hunted to extinction, especially if their body parts were in demand for means to boast of high status and wage war.

I think the creature, if it is a single creature, is a gigantopithecus analog.

Gigantopithecus is a close match as well. Shame that they're not represented by a complete skull because I'd love to know how accurate Grover Krantz's reconstruction is.

Also, if it is a 10 ft tall ape, I'd wager that it's more ferocious than a Janoan if threatened :P

Also Kambien, you're spot on about brain folds. I thought about putting something about brain folds in there, but didn't want to go more overboard than I already had on my post.