According to new research, the mythical Yeti, also known as the Abominable Snowman, actually comes from the polar bear family.
Tests carried out on hair samples concluded that a sub-species of the indigenous brown bear of the High Himalayas is most likely the creäture that people have mistaken for the Yeti.
Many an intrepid explorer has claimed that they have come face-to-face with the Yeti, which is supposed to look like something between a human and a large ape.
A professor of human genetics, Bryan Sykes of Oxford University, set out to find some Yeti hairs in order to establish which species they come from.
Professor Sykes focused on hairs collected from two animals. One from the western Himalayas and one from Bhutun, 800 miles east. The hairs underwent advanced DNA testing and compared the results to a database of other animal hairs.
He found that one of the hair samples was a 100 percent match with a sample collected from an ancient polar bear found in Norway, dating back over 40,000 years.
Professor Sykes said that he believes that Yetis are in fact hybrids of polar bears and brown bears. He told reporters:
This is an exciting and completely unexpected result that gave us all a surprise. I don’t think it means there are ancient polar bears wandering around the Himalayas. It could mean there is a sub-species of brown bear in the High Himalayas descended from the bear that was the ancestor of the polar bear. Or it could mean there has been more recent hybridisation between the brown bear and the descendent of the ancient polar bear.
The research is neither conclusive nor is it accepted by many Bigfootologists and Yeti enthusiasts. Don’t get confused, Bigfoots and Yetis are two different things .
A Bigfoot, also known as a Sasquatch , is an ape-like creature, which people believe lives in forests situated in the Pacific Northwest of America.
A Yeti, sometimes called an Abominable Snowman, is also ape-like in mythological terms, but lives, as mentioned above, in the Himalayas.
