ZooBank
But Ketchum wasn’t deterred. In 2013, Homo sapiens cognatus, her name for Bigfoot, was added to ZooBank, the official registry of species names. That’s right: According to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, Bigfoot exists. Apparently, their only criteria is that a species is named in a scientific journal, no matter how made up that day, and when a Bigfoot enthusiast reached out for comment, an unnamed “expert” simply said that “all the requirements for establishing the new name were fulfilled” so they had “no grounds to reject the scientific name.” Basically, “We didn’t think of that, so shut up.”
Top image: René Dahinden/Patricia Patterson