A genetic analysis revealed the origin of Yeti
The mystery of the legendary monster known as Yeti has kept researchers awake at night for many decades. Therefore, they finally decided to perform a genetic analysis of a series of samples which they thought they belonged to Yetis, and revealed they are not as mysterious as they thought. It turns out the beasts are more familiar that the scientists expected, as most samples actually belonged to bears.
Yeti is not as legendary as people thought
For several centuries, people kept seeing huge scary creatures roaming the mountains in Tibet and Nepal. Since they couldn’t explain the origin of the monsters, they created a whole legend around them. This is how the Yeti was born.
Apart from the people of the mountains, scientists were also curious about Yeti. Since no one got a clear sighting of the creature, they decided to collect a series of samples attributed to the monsters and perform a genetic analysis on them. Therefore, they gathered nine hair, fecal, bone, and skin samples, and started studying them.
The Yeti remains actually belonged to bears
It turns out Yeti is not so legendary as we thought, since eight of the samples belonged to bears, and one to a dog. The bears were either Asian black bears and brown bears, creatures who are not at all uncommon in the Himalayan mountains.
“This study represents the most rigorous analysis to date of samples suspected to derive from anomalous or mythical ‘hominid’-like creatures,” explain the authors of the study, which is to be published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Apart from disclosing the mystery of the Yeti, researchers made some other discoveries as well. The genetic analysis of these remains revealed more about the origin of Asian bears. It turns out that Himalayan brown bears have a different origin than other brown bears. They started evolving from a different specimen 650,000 years ago, when the bear lineage split.
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