18 October 2013

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Mystery regarding Himalayan Yeti Solved Yeti lives British Scientist

Mystery regarding Himalayan Yeti Solved Yeti lives British Scientist

Research by a British scientist has concluded that the legendary Himalayan yeti may in fact be a sub-species of brown bear.

DNA tests on hair samples carried out by Oxford University genetics professor Bryan Sykes found that they matched those from an ancient polar bear.


Prof Sykes told the BBC that there may be a real biological animal behind the yeti myth.

He says the most likely explanation for the myth is that the animal is a hybrid of polar bears and brown bears.

"I think this bear, which nobody has seen alive,... may still be there and may have quite a lot of polar bear in it," he said.

Prof Sykes conducted the DNA tests on hairs from two unidentified animals, one from Ladakh - in northern India on the west of the Himalayas - and the other from Bhutan, 1,285km (800 miles) further east.

The results were then compared with the genomes of other animals that are stored on a database of all published DNA sequences.

Prof Sykes found that he had a 100% match with a sample from an ancient polar bear jawbone found in Svalbard, Norway, that dates back to between 40,000 and 120,000 years ago - a time when the polar bear and closely related brown bear were separating as different species.

The species are closely related and are known to interbreed where their territories overlap.

The sample from Ladakh came from the mummified remains of a creature shot by a hunter around 40 years ago, while the second sample was in the form of a single hair, found in a bamboo forest by an expedition of filmmakers around 10 years ago.

Prof Sykes said that his results were "completely unexpected" and that more work needed to be done interpreting them.

Suggested Reading –

British scientist 'solves' mystery of Himalayan yetis


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Friday, October 18, 2013

Tags – Yeti Himalaya Solved

2 comments:

Destination Infinity October 19, 2013  

I think, they are surviving so long, because human beings may not be able to access all areas of himalayas. Otherwise, they might have been hunted and become extinct by now. It will be good if they continue to remain a mystery (and away from human hands and zoos).

SM October 20, 2013  

@Destination Infinity

thanks.
yes i agree with you