The Mystery of the Bili Ape

So picture this. I was starting to do research for my second video, the one about great apes. I looked into all the different types of ape, firstly to begin structuring the video, and also because forgetting a type of ape in a video all about them might be just a little bit alarming. While looking through the different species, I noticed one that I've never heard of before. A creature seemingly obscure to science and the public, and possibly a new species of a truly groundbreaking discovery if true. Today I hope to tell you of my personal dive into a zoological odyssey. The mystery of the billy ape. Firstly, what is the billy ape? The billy ape, billy chimp, or bondo mystery ape, is generally agreed to be an animal which closely resembles a large chimpanzee. Billy apes get their name for their habitat, the billy forest located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The forest consists of woodland savannah to the north that transitions to a humid, dense jungle in the south. Due to this, the forest holds a mirage of fauna, including elephants, hyenas, big cats, and buffalo. The forest is named after the nearby village of billy, with the next nearest village to billy, bondo, being 200km away. Both villages are only accessible to the outside world by dirt paths, which become impassable in rainy weather. Because of this and the internal conflicts within the Congo, it is rarely ever visited or studied by humans, leaving it one of the many obscure places within the Congo jungle. Most of the information about the enigmatic apes is folklore and legend from the natives in the region, as well as colonial European hunters during the turn of the 20th century. The apes in this region are said to be split into two categories, regular sized and overall average primates, and another group of apes called the lion killers. As said before, these were said to be giant apes, standing up to 2 meters tall. To give that perspective, a grown chimpanzee reaches roughly 1.5 meters tall. The apes are said to be ferocious and unusually feral as well. Other information is much easier to doubt, such as the rumors these billy apes are immune to poison arrows, hunt and eat lions, as well as howl at the moon. From the late 1800s to early 1900s, Europeans who had traveled to the region began telling of the strange descriptions of these apes. Several hunters bring back photographs showing the bodies of what were presumably dead gorillas from the billy forest. In the 1930s, a German man published his journal in Africa, one section of it describing and illustrating a massive chimp shot near billy. In 1898, a Belgian army officer brought back what appeared to be three gorilla skulls from the forest. It should be noted at this time that gorillas have not since been spotted in the billy jungle. A few years later, the skulls were investigated and garnered a small amount of intrigue, with scientists hypothesizing a possible unknown subspecies of great ape in the billy jungle. The story of these mystery primates were left unnoticed by the rest of the world, until nearly a century later in 1996, a Swiss-born wildlife and conservationist named Karl Amann became intrigued at what he believed were lost gorillas, and traveled deep into the Congo jungle to learn more of them. Traveling into the billy jungle, he was excited and enrared by the stories locals told, and soon realized they were not mere gorillas. They told him the stories of huge howling apes that killed lions, but other intriguing pieces of information as well. Most importantly, that when encountered by humans, the apes would be completely fearless, seemingly not bothered by their presence, and not aggressive or scampering away from perceived threats, behavior common with gorillas or chimpanzees. Amann also returned with another skull, this one having the dimensions of a chimp, yet the distinct sagittal crest running across the top of the skull, something seen in gorillas. He also purchased a photo showing what appeared to be an enormous chimp. Other evidence he collected were dung samples many times larger than any chimpanzee samples, as well as a footprint that rivaled those of gorillas. When Amann returned to his expedition, he joined a research project to not only study the apes more, but also help conserve the local post-wildlife in the Bili area. However, Amann was briefly interrupted by internal obstacles in the Congo. Shockingly, the Democratic Republic of the Congo had more to worry about than mystery monkeys, most notably a civil war which ravaged itself and most of the surrounding Africa and killed more than 5 million people. After the war settled down, in a time span from roughly 2003 to 2005, Amann now had two film teams, as well as primate and mammal experts also studying the apes, traveling back and forth from the outside world to Bili. Of the researchers he brought on, the two most important to the story are Dr. Cleve Hicks and Shelly Williams. Once again, they gathered more dung samples and footprints. However, their most unique discoveries were the Although they found some nests in the trees, which is standard for chimps, they also found many nests on the ground, which is more akin to gorillas, who also nest on the jungle floor. In 2003, primatologist Shelly Williams encountered one of the apes, the first scientist to see one in life. She said that the animals charged her after the trackers she was walking with made the sound of She then goes on to say, She describes their face as akin to a gorilla. One year later, Cleve Hicks also made contact with the population many times. Contact in this situation defined as being when both the human and ape were aware of each other. The contacts were about half an hour long, and during this time different behavior was shown depending on the age and gender of the ape. Subadults and juveniles showed seemingly no fear for their human observers, appearing to look curiously at the humans and their cameras, and in some cases approaching them arboreally. Adult females seemed hesitant of people, watching from the trees and occasionally screaming at the onlookers. In one case, a female climbed right over the research team and proceeded to defecate on them before slowly moving off. Oddly enough, the group frightened by humans the most appeared to be the larger-than-average adult males, who after making contact would flee the vicinity. One time, however, it is reported Hicks found an ape eating the body of a dead leopard after presumably having killed it, validating their lion-killer status. Hicks would later examine the tools and tracks of the primates, as well as collecting DNA from the animals. He would return from his expedition in 2005. By this time, a clearer picture had been painted about this animal. The billy ape appeared to be a great ape, at least somewhat related to a chimpanzee, however differed in many ways, such as their large size and apathy towards humans, and in some cases shared traits with gorillas, such as ground nesting and sagittal crests. Many theories sprung up trying to explain the apes. One theory stated that these apes were a yet undiscovered subspecies of chimps, which in itself would be pretty groundbreaking. More outlandish ones stated that they were a hybrid species between gorillas and chimps. Shelley Williams, one of the few scientists to see one in person, believed that they were an entirely new species of ape altogether, which if true would be the greatest zoological finding in generations, and Williams reported her theories to many news outlets. Yet the greatest data brought back by any of these scientists would be the DNA Cleve Hicks returned with. This was genetically tested, and along with the photo evidence and samples brought back, the zoological world has finally found out what the billy ape is. It's just a chimp. No seriously, it's just a regular eastern chimpanzee. No new species, not even a new subspecies, just a chimp with individuals who are unnaturally large, and another interesting aspect we'll get to later. I bet you feel pretty disappointed now, and I get it. I was too when I first went on a deep dive to research this and came up with no mystery ape. What about all of the evidence that supported these creatures as something never before seen? Well, all of that could be relatively explained away without jumping to ridiculous conclusions. Firstly, the skulls. These original three skulls discovered by the Belgian officer do seem to be gorilla-like skulls in an area that had been without gorillas for a long time. Well, turns out that these skulls are just gorillas. Even though gorillas aren't in the region anymore, this doesn't mean they were never there to begin with. As with Amon's skulls, I emailed him about it, to which he responded, quote, I believe the skull was that of a chimp despite the crest, as supposedly the molars were also those of a chimp, end quote. So just because the skull has one gorilla-like feature certainly shouldn't supersede the fact that the skull's dimensions and teeth are also those of a chimpanzee. And although crests are very much a gorilla thing, chimp skulls can appear to have a crest-like structure running across their cranium. Compare Amon's skull with that of a certified chimp skull with a pronounced crest, and it's hard to say these animals could be different. Cleve Hicks accounts have been continually manipulated by news outlets. For instance, although Hicks' contacts with the billy apes shows a group of timid if not naive creatures, many articles claimed he was observing unusually violent and aggressive chimps, which is strange considering chimps are by default very dangerous and unpredictable animals. Although Hicks did indeed find an ape feeding on a leopard, aggressive behavior towards leopards is not unheard of among chimps, with documented occurrences of other chimps actively attacking leopards. Additionally, the eating of other mammals is also a chimpanzee staple, with one of the great ape's favorite meals being colobus monkeys. Just because a leopard carcass was found does not validate these animals being murderous apex predators. In fact, in one entry, Hicks mocks the title after consistently contacting huge males who seem to only flee from humans. Overall, in his entries, Cleve Hicks concludes that To further prove this is just a chimp, look at this billy ape Carl Amon rescued and brought back. It's no monster or murder crazed jungle predator, just your average chimpanzee, exhibiting standard behaviors and getting along with other chimps. Still, what about William's accounts? The charging apes? The gorilla-like faces? The fact she believed they could be an entirely new species? Well, all of that was not due to some vague evidence or media skewing, but instead William's own misinformation she tried spreading. Why would any scientist do that? Well, during the expedition, Williams and another scientist, Dr. Colin Groves, informed Carl that they had gotten research funds from National Geographic in exchange for Nat Geo getting complete exclusivity of media coverage. This conflict with Amon's original research funding, which came from Wasmowith Wildlife Foundation, who not only funded the billy apes' research, but also allowed the locals to begin selling their coffee beans in exchange for stopping the poaching of local animals. It was essentially a research and conservation project rolled into one, and both Dr. Williams and Groves were well aware of this. Besides that, there was already legal commitment to the film teams who had first accompanied the researchers, who were planning on creating a documentary about the research, as it proved more and more that National Geographic's interference with the project would conflict with its conservation goals and integrity, Carl Amon refused Williams' negotiations, and instead tried setting up a separate research agreement for Shelley Williams. This is when a widely circulated press release who had gotten their information from Williams was published. In this press release, the report aggrandized Williams' role in the research, even though on Carl Amon's website, it says, quote, there is absolutely nothing Dr. Williams has contributed that was not known and established before she got involved, end quote. Williams also told the media completely unscientific and outrageous lies. She told journalists that nothing, not even humans hunt the mystery apes, which based off of Williams' own photograph she brought back showing the locals hunting the big chimps, is a complete lie. Furthermore, she claimed that the apes howl at the full moon, and although they get more vocal at night, it is still an absurd lie based on folk legend. This shows that none of Williams' accounts should probably be trusted whatsoever, with Amon saying, quote, that we are totally dismayed with Dr. Williams' unprofessional attitude and her unscientific and mendacious press release, end quote, and subsequently removed her from the project. The press release can be brushed off as petty spite or self-aggrandizement by Williams, but can also be linked to a dark pattern within scientific studies, the art of overhyping. See, in order to get backers and the public interested in your research, you have to make it exciting for them. In all honesty, I have no problems with this. It's how the world works, and by default, stuff like zoology and paleontology is interesting as long as you present it correctly. But that's one thing, and it is another thing to, as a scientist, skew the facts to make your research more fantastical than it really is. It's bad enough to lie to the public about your data, but if you get caught, you discredit your research and let down your onlookers, which is exactly what Shelley Williams had been doing, by misinforming the public with these outlandish and amazing claims, like it was a new species or they have no predators, once the billy ape was revealed to be just a chimp. Many people, myself included, probably felt disappointed and lied to, even though if you look deeper into the research, this proves to be the most logical explanation. Williams brought unneeded attention and reactions to the billy ape, from what I can see as a desperate move to get people to back her own research into them, and quickly ended up not living up to her unrealistic claims. I have seen overhyping played out time and time again, with another good example being Dreadnoughtus. Dreadnoughtus, awesome name by the way, was a large sauropod discovered by a team of paleontologists from Drexel University. The skeleton was huge, and most importantly, very complete for such a large dinosaur, as big sauropods like Dreadnoughtus usually have a hard time fossilizing completely. However, instead of promoting this part of their find, the team instead told the media this was one of the largest dinosaurs ever found. They had used an inaccurate equation to calculate the mass of the animal at 60 metric tons, then on top of that, told the public that the skeleton they found might not even be fully grown. Yet the estimate was immediately criticized as inaccurate by others, and the animal was more accurately measured at weighing nearly half the original estimate. But if paleontologists had simply reported their actual amazing find, and not given the public easily falsified information, they still would have had a rather stellar specimen with an amazing name to get people's attention. Instead, they exaggerated their own discovery, causing them to be criticized by fellow paleontologists, and eventually not living up to their original size claims. Overhyping has happened to countless scientific discoveries, and of course to the billy ape, as they might not be a new species or hybrid, but they are still some of the most interesting groups of chimpanzees found to date. Humans are not the only animals with culture, as chimpanzees also share this trait. Among different chimpanzee groups, the individuals pass down learned skills and behavior, such as different ways to use tools or build nests, and the billy apes, due to their isolated population, have some of the most distinct behaviors of any chimps. Probably due to a genetic mutation that has left some billy apes very large, these individuals have to build nests on the ground, something not characteristic to chimps. They also used supersized versions of tools, such as a stick used by the apes, to probe termite mounds, which are the longest on record. The reason they seemed so fearless of humans was probably not due to some alpha predator mentality, but instead the subital chimps, or the ones most curious about the researchers, were probably young enough and lived so deep in the forest they had never needed to fear poachers. Although we know many interesting things about billy apes, many questions have not been answered. No one knows exactly why some billy apes are so large, and the mutation theory is merely rational speculation. Why do some of these apes nest on the ground, when the environment around them is chock full with numerous large predators? Although it can be explained away, the fact the chimps might have killed and ate a leopard, combined with the local rumors, hint that maybe these apes have a culture of hunting down big cats from time to time. But of course, the full extent and behavior of this chimp group is still relatively unknown. In conclusion, the story and existence of the billy ape is still in the eye of the beholder. To some, they are still folk legends who howl at the moon and eat lions. To others, they should be a lesson on how to respect your discovery and not spread misinformation. But they will always be another secret kept by the jungle, not fully understood by mankind. My greatest thanks to Carl Lamont and his team, who I personally contacted with a few questions, and gave me permission to use the photos he took. Without his research and rediscovery of the apes, this video or probably any modern knowledge of the billy ape would not exist, period. Another thanks to Dr. Cleve Hicks, who also answered a couple questions of mine, and was another large part of this research. I want to say I am sorry for any possible mistakes in this episode. I did try to keep it as accurate as possible. However, things such as dates and when some expeditions took place are vague and contradictory, no matter where you look. Overall, this has been a great topic to look into, and I really enjoyed it. And I hope you did too. See ya!