Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer held a Saturday news conference and showed photos of what they claim is a 500-plus-pound dead biped they are keeping in a cooler at an undisclosed location. Pictures and descriptions are available on the Internet at : http://www.searchingforbigfoot.com.

Their Web site claims the ape-like creature, named Rickmat in honor of its finders, measures 7 feet, 7 inches tall, with reddish hair, black-gray eyes and teeth similar to a human's.

But other Bigfoot hunters are unconvinced.

"It looks like a costume, a waterlogged costume that's been stuffed into a freezer," Jeff Meldrum, an associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, told The Washington Post Saturday. "It just doesn't have the hallmark of a real corpse."