Posted on 12/09/2017 7:45:50 PM PST by nickcarraway
Hikers in Tibet and the Himalayas need not fear the monstrous yeti—but they’d darn well better carry bear spray. DNA analyses of nine samples purported to be from the “abominable snowman” reveal that eight actually came from various species of bears native to the area.
In the folklore of Nepal, the yeti looms large. The creature is often depicted as an immense, shaggy ape-human that roams the Himalayan hinterlands. Purported sightings over the years, as well as scattered “remains” secreted away in monasteries or held by shamans, have hinted to some that the yeti is not merely a mythical boogeyman.
But science has not borne this out so far. Previous genetic analyses of a couple of hair samples collected in India and Bhutan suggested that one small stretch of their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)—the genetic material in a cell’s power-generating machinery that’s passed down only by females—resembled that of polar bears. That finding hinted that a previously unknown type of bear, possibly a hybrid between polar bears and brown bears, could be roaming the Himalayas, says Charlotte Lindqvist, an evolutionary biologist at the State University of New York in Buffalo.
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To find out for sure, Lindqvist and her colleagues took a more thorough look at the mtDNA of as many samples of supposed yeti remains as she could get her hands on. Some were obtained when she worked with a U.K. production crew on the 2016 documentary Yeti or Not?, which sought to sift fact from folklore. The filmmakers got hold of a tooth and some hair collected on the Tibetan Plateau in the late 1930s, as well as a sample of scat from Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner’s museum in the Tyrolean Alps. More recent samples included hair collected in Nepal by a nomadic herdsman and a leg bone found by a spiritual healer in a cave in Tibet. The team also analyzed samples recently collected from several subspecies of bears native to the area, including the Himalayan brown bear, the Tibetan brown bear, and the black bear. Altogether, the scientists analyzed 24 samples, including nine purported to be from yeti.
Of the nine purported yeti remains analyzed in a new study, eight of them (including the fragment of leg bone seen above) came from bears.
Of the nine “yeti” samples, eight turned out to be from bears native to the area, the researchers report today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The other sample came from a dog. Similar studies of hair samples supposedly related to North America’s big hairy hominid, the sasquatch (aka Bigfoot), have revealed that those fibers came from bears, horses, dogs, and a variety of other creatures—even a human.
Debunking aside, the new study also yielded lots of scientifically useful info, Lindqvist says. The analyses generated the first full mitochondrial genomes for the Himalayan brown bear (Ursus arctos isabellinus) and the Himalayan black bear (Ursus thibetanus laniger), for example. That could help scientists figure out how genetically different these rare subspecies are from more common species, as well as the last time these groups shared maternal ancestors in the past.
“It’s great that we now know these bears’ place in the maternal family tree,” says Beth Shapiro, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved with the work.
“These guys did a pretty good job,” adds Todd Disotell, a biological anthropologist at New York University in New York City. One finding—that the Himalayan brown bear and the Tibetan brown bear had such clearly distinct mtDNA—was surprising, he notes, because subspecies are often genetically similar: “I didn’t expect that.”
He wonders whether future analyses of these bears’ nuclear DNA (which contains genetic contributions from both the mother and the father) will tell the same story. Male and female bears lead different lifestyles: Mama bears generally don’t wander much beyond their home territory, whereas male bears roam over much larger ranges. So, he suggests, the nuclear genomes of these subspecies might reveal that they’re hybridized more than the mtDNA suggests.
At the very least, when researchers return to the Himalayas to collect new samples, they won’t have to be so concerned about stumbling into the clutches of the infamous yeti.
That can’t be. DNA evidence of my Bigfoot Java coffee says it was brewed by white Snowmen. You can’t convince me otherwise.
In other news, liberal perverts have been raping bears while they hibernate.
ManBearPig
And the ninth DNA analysis was of?
OK, a dog.
I think if I stumbled into the lair of a brown bear Instead of a Yeti I would still be concerned. Like hi big doggie. No need to get up. I will just be going now.
Simple.
Abominable snowman.
interesting footnote- jimmie stewart helped smuggle out a supposed yeti hand i beleive it was- that later turned out to be human:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangboche_Hand
“One finding—that the Himalayan brown bear and the Tibetan brown bear had such clearly distinct mtDNA—was surprising, he notes, because subspecies are often genetically similar: “I didn’t expect that.” “
So - what they admit is that they don’t know as much as they think they do. I would include the possibility of Yeti in there. (I would like to think that they are “real” - but have my doubts as well.)
The one kicker in this study was that these samples are from areas where witnesses claimed they saw a Yeti. So with so few sightings, and being able to say that the few sightings with physical evidence all indicated it was a native animal is pretty damning.
But.....
OR...bear DNA belongs to...Yeti...
They just haven’t figured it out yeti.
Off to the punitentiary with you! Dilly, Dilly!
Someone needs to do a photoshop of Al Franken with his hands on a sleeping bear, lol!
So cute!
They found DNA that came from items that had been believed to be Yetis. Believed to be. They have not proved anything beyond that.
I’ve been following this off and on since I read Ivan T. Sanderson’s books back in the 1960s. I always thought something fishy was going on. Back in those days Popular Mechanics (or was it Science) made the statement that proof would be found within ten years. It wasn’t.
Skin a bear and he will pass for human.
A wookiee.
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