British Professor Claims Yeti Is A Polar Bear Hybrid b4in.org/iY1 The Abominable Snowman, also known as the Yeti, has been reportedly traipsing the Himalayan hillsides for millennia. Sightings of this assumed ape-like cryptid have been occurring since the 19th century, gaining in popularity in the 20th century only after the advent of exploration to the region. While most accounts of this cryptid have offered up striking similarities to the American Sasquatch, as well as other primate-like cryptids around the world, one new account by a British scientist is adding a whole new element to the legend of the Yeti. According to genetics professor Bryan Sykes of Oxford University, the legendary Himalayan Yeti may not be an ape-like creature after all. He is leaning more toward Ursidae, or bears to be exact – and he says he has the DNA evidence to prove it. HYBRID THEORY Sykes conducted DNA analysis of hair samples taken from two Himalayan animals that have been identified by local people as Yetis. The analysis showed both hair samples shared a unique genetic fingerprint with a polar bear jawbone discovered in the Norwegian Arctic that is at least 40,000 years old. Sykes said this analysis shows that the DNA recovered from the hair samples makes the creatures they came from are not related to modern Himalayan bears, but rather were direct descendants of a prehistoric polar bear. Sykes told the Associated Press “it may be a new species, it may be a hybrid” between brown bears and polar bears in the Himalayas; but to know for sure, Sykes said, “The next thing is go there and find one.” The hair samples Sykes analyzed came to him after he put out the call to museums, scientists and Yeti experts to share their evidence with him. He noted one sample came from an alleged Yeti mummy in the Indian region of Ladakh, on the western edge of the Himalayas. That sample was taken by a French mountaineer nearly 40 years earlier. The second sample was found a decade ago in Bhutan, 800 miles east of where the first sample derived. Based on the evidence that two distinct hair samples were found so far apart and so recently, Sykes believes the members of this species are still alive and roaming the snow-covered mountains of the Himalayas. “I can’t imagine we managed to get samples from the only two ‘snow bears’ in the Himalayas,” he told AP. According to Cnet’s Amanda Kooser, Sykes said that he didn’t necessarily believe there were ancient polar bears roaming around the Himalayas, but he was open to the possibility of the existence of a modern descendant of these ancient creatures. He noted that a bear explanation sounds more plausible than a giant hair-covered humanoid traipsing the countryside. BIGFOOT FILES More b4in.org/iY1
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 14:20:46 +0000
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