British scientist 'solves' mystery of Himalayan yetis

[Turborama]

Source: BBC

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.

He subjected the hairs to the most advanced tests available.

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

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24564487

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More details on the tests at the link.

[LibertyLover]

1. That's an interesting theory

and could very well be correct. My only question is how did polar bears get to the Himalayas to mate with the indigenous brown bears? It's a fair distance between the two habitats.

[flyingfysh]

4. It would have been easy during an ice age

It would have been cold and frozen all the way.

[d_r]

5. way back in ice age times

would be my guess. The match isn't to modern polar bears, it is to the bear one step up the evolutionary ladder before polar bears and brown bears split. So it might be a hybrid of modern polar and brown bears, or it could be a direct descendent of that more ancient bear that survived in isolation in the Himalayas after the ice ages retreated. Sort of like an animal on an island.

[d_r]

2. Ok that is fascinating

A group of polar bears surviving outside polar regions? Interbred with brown bears or an animal descended from before the evolutionary split between polar and brown bears? The match is to an animal before the evolutionary split, so this could be a surviving remnant of a bear species.

[Berlum]

3. "Smirk" - Y. Eti

[cosmicone]

6. I'll feel much safer wandering in the Himalayas now. n/t

[starroute]

7. Or it could be that bear fur has been passed off as yeti hair

I'm not at all convinced that yeti really exist -- but if they do, they have to be unusually wary of their distant human relatives and unusually elusive when it comes to leaving traces of themselves. So the fact that Tibetan monks have been passing off a substitute for the real thing wouldn't be at all surprising.

On the other hand, it seems like this professor has just managed to substitute one unlikely cryptid for another. A descendent of ancient polar bears that has managed to interbreed with the local brown bears to the point of being indistinguishable from them in appearance while still retaining its polar bear DNA? That sounds like even more of a tall tale than the yeti.

[dipsydoodle]

8. A group of them may have been cut off

when they stopped the bus service.

[BillyRibs]

9. Abominal!? Can you Believe that?

Abominal!? Can you Believe that?

[Orrex]

10. Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?

"I see a Yeti related to me."

[yuiyoshida]

11. The Doctor would tell you He Knew it all the Time!

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. His were mechanical ...

http://monsterminions.wordpress.com/2013/10/13/doctor-who-the-web-of-fear-1968/

[onehandle]

12. All 'Bigfoot' sightings are either bears, or idiots in bear suits.

Always have been.

Period.

[infidel dog]

13. Well, there was a yeti sighting in my neighborhood once

I never went out to pick up the morning paper shirtless again.

[kydo]

14. My dog has been known to kill yeti's

He is a Great Pyrenees and according to the breed's history the originated in the southwest of France, northeast of Spain in the circle of mountains and surrounding valleys inhabited by the Basque People. According to the Basque not only did their dogs protect the sheep from wolfs and bears but they defended them from the charges of the legendary and often greatly feared, hairy god of the forest.

Who needs a gun, I got Corporal Hicks ... who is sleeping on the couch ...

[RebelOne]

16. Seems a more logical explanation than that of it being from a yeti. n/t

[NickB79]

18. There are polar-grizzly bear hybrids in Alaska

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly%E2%80%93polar_bear_hybrid

This is interesting:

After inspecting the bear and having its DNA tested, it was discovered that the bear's mother was a grizzly-polar hybrid and the father was a grizzly bear. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources for the NWT said that it "...may be the first recorded second-generation polar-grizzly bear hybrid found in the wild".[10] The bear possesses physical characteristics intermediate between grizzlies and polar bears, such as brown fur on its paws, long claws and a grizzly-like head.

Apparently the hybrids are fertile as well, so theoretically you could get a viable population long-term.