Purported Yeti Samples Are Genetically Identical to Asian Bears, DNA Study Says

The Yeti, a mysterious ‘hominid’-like creature said to inhabit the high mountains of Asia, looms large in the mythology of Nepal and Tibet. Now, a new DNA study of purported Yeti samples is providing insight into the origins of this legend.

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.

“Our findings strongly suggest that the biological underpinnings of the Yeti legend can be found in local bears, and our study demonstrates that genetics should be able to unravel other, similar mysteries,” said Dr. Charlotte Lindqvist, a researcher at the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences and Nanyang Technological University.

Dr. Lindqvist and co-authors analyzed nine ‘Yeti’ specimens, including bone, tooth, skin, hair and fecal samples collected in the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau.

Of those, one turned out to be from a dog. The other eight were from Asian bears — one from an Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus), one from a Himalayan brown bear (Ursus arctos isabellinus), and the other six from Tibetan brown bears (Ursus arctos pruinosus).

“We investigated samples such as a scrap of skin from the hand or paw of a ‘Yeti’ — part of a monastic relic — and a fragment of femur bone from a decayed ‘Yeti’ found in a cave on the Tibetan Plateau,” the researchers said.

“The skin sample turned out to be from an Asian black bear, and the bone from a Tibetan brown bear.”

“The samples that we examined were provided by British production company Icon Films.”

The team is not the first to research ‘Yeti’ DNA, but past projects ran simpler genetic analyses, which left important questions unresolved.

“This study represents the most rigorous analysis to date of samples suspected to derive from anomalous or mythical ‘hominid’-like creatures,” the scientists said.

Besides tracing the origins of the Yeti legend, the study is uncovering information about the evolutionary history of Asian bears.

“Bears in this region are either vulnerable or critically endangered from a conservation perspective, but not much is known about their past history,” Dr. Lindqvist said.

“The Himalayan brown bears, for example, are highly endangered. Clarifying population structure and genetic diversity can help in estimating population sizes and crafting management strategies.”

The researchers sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of 23 Asian bears (including the purported Yetis), and compared this genetic data to that of other bears worldwide.

This analysis showed that while Tibetan brown bears share a close common ancestry with their North American and Eurasian kin, Himalayan brown bears belong to a distinct evolutionary lineage that diverged early on from all other brown bears.

The split occurred about 650,000 years ago, during a period of glaciation, according to the study.

The timing suggests that expanding glaciers and the region’s mountainous geography may have caused the Himalayan bears to become separated from others, leading to a prolonged period of isolation and an independent evolutionary path.

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

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Tianying Lan et al. 2017. Evolutionary history of enigmatic bears in the Tibetan Plateau–Himalaya region and the identity of the yeti. Proc. R. Soc. B 284 (1868): 20171804; doi: 10.1098/rspb.2017.1804