© Katy Kristin
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Next time you’re on a camping trip or hiking expedition and think you’ve encountered the elusive Yeti, take comfort in the knowledge that it’s probably a bear. You’ll feel so much safer knowing that it’s not some mysterious hominid unknown to science, but in all likelihood a hybrid between a brown bear and a polar bear.
Though the legendary creatures have long been described as apes, a new study by an Oxford University genetics professor claims that sightings of may well be attributable to an ancient species of polar bear. Bryan Sykes studied the DNA extracted from a hair alleged to have come from a mummified Yeti in India decades ago as well as a hair found in Bhutan much more recently. Both samples had DNA sequences that corresponded to the DNA found in the 40,000-year-old jawbone of a species of ancient polar bear found in Norway’s arctic.
Sykes’ viewpoint is that because the animals are part polar bear, they might stand and walk on two feet more often, as polar bears are known to do, and which would explain eyewitness accounts of yeti sightings as bipedal creatures.
Find out more about this from CBC News