Scientists behind a new study published in the journal ZooKeys reject a recent claim that a yet-to-be-discovered species of Himalayan bear may be the source of yeti legends.
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 2012, Prof Bryan Sykes from the University of Oxford and his colleagues from Switzerland issued a call asking scientists and bigfoot hunters to share hair samples they thought were from yeti, bigfoot, and their counterparts.
A year ago, the scientists in the course of mitochondrial DNA analysis of the samples they received claimed to have found that two Himalayan samples matched DNA of a Pleistocene polar bear (Ursus maritimus). On this basis, they concluded that a currently unknown type of bear must inhabit that portion of Asia.
Later, however, it was shown by researchers from the University of Oxford and the Natural History Museum of Denmark that a sample that matched Pro Sykes’ Himalayan ones was, in fact, from a present-day polar bear from Alaska, not from a fossil, and they hypothesized that the genetic material in the samples attributed to an unknown bear species might have been misleading because of degradation.
Prof Sykes’s group, however, has continued to maintain that their Himalayan samples must be from an unknown bear.
In the new study, Dr Eliécer Gutiérrez of Smithsonian Institution and Dr Ronald Pine of Biodiversity Institute in Lawrence have concluded that the relevant genetic variation in brown bears (Ursus arctos) makes it impossible to assign, with certainty, Prof Sykes’ samples to either that species or the polar bear.
In fact, because of genetic overlap, the samples could have come from either one. Because brown bears occur in the Himalayas, the authors stated there is no reason to believe that the samples in question came from anything other than ordinary Himalayan brown bears.
As part of the study, the team examined how the gene sequences analyzed might show the ways in which six extant species of bears, including the polar bear, the brown bear, and the extinct Eurasian cave bear (Ursus spelaeus), might be related.
The results were partly in agreement with past studies but were also showing some new insights.
“The data set resulting from studying this part of the bears’ genomes seems to be insufficient to make any definitive decisions as to what are the existing relationships on the basis of it alone,” the scientists said.
“In combination with the results of other studies, however, it may very well prove quite useful in making such decisions.”
Interestingly, it was found that one sequence from an Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus) from Japan indicated that it was not closely related to the mainland members of that species.
This unexpected large evolutionary distance between these two geographic groups of Asian black bears probably deserves further study.
“In fact, a study looking at the genetic and morphological variability of Asian black bear populations throughout the geographic distribution of the species is yet to be conducted, and it would surely yield exciting results,” Dr Gutiérrez concluded.
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Gutiérrez EE, Pine RH. 2015. No need to replace an ‘anomalous’ primate (Primates) with an ‘anomalous’ bear (Carnivora, Ursidae). ZooKeys 487: 141-154; doi: 10.3897/zookeys.487.9176
