The Cryptid Zoo: Yeren

The yeren, otherwise known as the Chinese wildman, is a hairy humanoid reported from the dense forests of China. About man-sized, it has distinctive red hair. Unfortunately, the same term may be used to cover several different ape-like cryptids, such as the mainland orangutan, leading to confusion for those who want to learn about the yeren.

The yeren usually sounds like a bipedal, more human-like version of an orangutan. It could be an orangutan that has evolved to fill a more ground-dwelling niche, with associated bipedalism and thus it ends up looking like a Bigfoot or missing link through sheer coincidence. Bipedalism has evolved independently in the ape family at least two times, so it is at least slightly possible that this has happened yet again with an isolated population of orangutans.

In some reports, yeren sound less like bipedal orangutans and more like standard ape-men such as Bigfoot. These reports typically describe a creature varying between six and seven feet tall, with a heavy, muscular build and anatomical features that lean more towards the human side than towards the ape side. Fur colors are also more variable, with less instances of red. Some reports in this category sound so human-like than the yeren is thought by some researchers to be a primitive species of human, such as a Neanderthal man.

You can find out more about the Yeren from the following sources:

Clark, Jerome and Coleman, Loren. Cryptozoology A-Z. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999. Page 252

Clark, Jerome. Unexplained!. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1999. Pages 373-378

Cremo, Michael A. & Thompson, Richard L. Living Ape-Men: Wildmen of China

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Innes, Brian. Giant Humanlike Beasts

Keel, John A. The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings. New York: Doubleday, 1994. Pages 75-76

Newton, Michael. Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology: A Global Guide to Hidden Animals and Their Pursuers. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2005. Pages 111, 155, 182, 198, 228, 284, 421, 466, 497, 500-501, 508

Weidensaul, Scott. The Ghost with Trembling Wings: Science, Wishful Thinking and the Search for Lost Species. New York: North Point Press, 2002. Pages 172-173

Wikipedia, The. Yeren

Yeren Reports