TORONTO – The mystery of the yeti, a creature that witnesses say roams the Himalayas and is similar to North America’s Bigfoot and Sasquatch, has been solved: it’s a bear.
British geneticist and Oxford University professor Bryan Sykes claims that the ape-like creature is likely linked to an ancient polar bear or a hybridization of a black bear and a polar bear.
In 2012, Oxford University of London, England, and the Lausanne Museum of Zoology in Switzerland, put out a call for samples for analysis.
The joint venture collected about thirty samples which they could use.
According to Phys.org, the research found an exact match between two samples from the Himalayas and the polar bear.
The DNA from that sample matched 100 percent to a sample from Norway of a jawbone of a polar bear that existed some time between 40,000 and 120,000 years ago.
Sykes said that it doesn’t mean that an ancient polar bear is roaming the Himalayas, but rather that it could be a result of interbreeding between an ancient polar bear and black bear that has resulted in a subspecies.
In 1951, explorer Eric Shipton claimed to have photographed footprints of the yeti which popularized the myth of the creature.
Sykes will broadcast his findings in a BBC4 television special called “The Bigfoot Files” scheduled to air on Oct. 20.
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