The first ever systematic genetic analysis of evidence purporting to be from so-called anomalous primates such as yeti and migoi in the Himalaya, almasty in central Asia, sasquatch and bigfoot in North America has revealed no unknown species.
A still frame from the Patterson-Gimlin film, a famous motion picture of an unidentified subject filmed on October 20, 1967 by Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin on Bluff Creek, a tributary of the Klamath River about 25 road miles north-west of Orleans, California.
In May 2012, Prof Bryan Sykes from the University of Oxford and his colleagues from the Museum of Zoology, Lausanne issued an open call asking scientists and bigfoot hunters to share samples they thought were from the yeti and its counterparts.
A total of 57 hair samples were received and subjected to macroscopic, microscopic and infrared fluorescence examination to eliminate obvious non-hairs. 30 samples were subjected to DNA analysis.
The results appear in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
“It’s a great opportunity for scientists and cryptozoologists – those that look for unknown or hidden species such as the yeti or Loch Ness monster – to work more closely together,” said Prof Norman MacLeod, a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist at the Natural History Museum, London, UK, who wasn’t involved in the study.
None of the samples matched primates, except for one human hair. Most were from other extant mammals such as bears, cows and horses.
Two Himalayan samples – one from Ladakh, India, the other from Bhutan – most closely matched not an extant species, but a fossil sequence obtained from a Pleistocene polar bear (Ursus maritimus).
As polar bears are not known to occur on the Tibetan Plateau, Prof Sykes’ team speculates that the two samples may have come either from an unknown prehistoric bear or possibly from a hybrid between Ursus maritimus and the brown bear (Ursus arctos).
“For those seriously interested in finding out whether such creatures exist, the search does not need to stop here. It just needs to get smarter,” Prof MacLeod said.
“While the yeti and its counterparts are famous unknown species, many less charismatic species also await discovery,” he concluded.
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Bryan C. Sykes et al. 2014. Genetic analysis of hair samples attributed to yeti, bigfoot and other anomalous primates. Proc. R. Soc. B, vol. 281, no. 1789; doi: 10.1098/rspb.2014.0161
