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Bryan Sykes’ team was in error matching “Yeti” hair samples with a Pleistocene polar bear DNA. It was modern polar bear, instead. The information was published in the following comments to the original paper.
C. J. Edwards and R. Barnett
Proc. R. Soc. B February 7, 2015 282 20141712; doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.1712
A significant finding, they point out, is “that the two [Yeti] sequences” were incorrectly matched to “a Pleistocene fossil more than 40,000 BP of U. maritimus (polar bear).” Instead, the correct match is with “a modern U. maritimus individual from Diomede, Little Diomede Island, Alaska.”
For clarification, brown bears are Ursus arctos, polar bears are Ursus maritimus, and Himalayan brown bears are Ursus arctos isabellinus.
Sykes’ and his associates then replied:
Terry W. Melton, Michel Sartori, and Bryan C. Sykes
Proc. R. Soc. B February 7, 2015 282 20142434; doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.2434
In response, Sykes, et alii, agreed that their Yeti samples were not from the “jawbone of a Pleistocene polar bear Ursus maritimus, after all. They acknowledged the “matches were instead to a modern specimen of U. maritimus from the Diomede Islands in the Bering Sea reported in the same paper.”
Therefore, the entire conclusion that the two Yeti DNA samples were a 100% match to the possible polar bear-brown bear hybrid, the 40,000 year before present Pleistocene polar bear is wrong. That conclusion has to be thrown out.
But here’s were the media muddles the picture.
The
BBC News rushed in with a bit of misinformation, I’m afraid.
With totally no basis in what is being said in the two comments in
Proceedings B, the BBC published
this:
A theory that the mythical yeti is a rare polar bear-brown bear hybrid animal has been challenged.
Last year, Oxford University genetics professor Bryan Sykes revealed the results of DNA tests on hairs said to be from the Abominable Snowman.
The tests matched the samples with the DNA of an ancient polar bear.
But two other scientists have said re-analysis of the same data shows the hairs belong to the Himalayan bear, a sub-species of the brown bear.
The BBC merely extends the facts of the paper into the realm of what Edwards and Barnett might theorize:
In their paper, Dr Edwards and Dr Barnett said their tests identified the hairs as being from a rare type of brown bear.
The scientists said: “The Himalayan bear is a sub-species of the brown bear that lives in the higher reaches of the Himalayas, in remote, mountainous areas of Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and India.
“Its populations are small and isolated, and it is extremely rare in many parts of its range.
“The common name for these bears in the region is Dzu-teh, a Nepalese term meaning ‘cattle bear’, and they have long been associated with the myth of the yeti.”
It appears that the reporter or editor at the BBC News dipped into
Wikipedia for their second source. There you can find this: “The Himalayan Brown Bear (
Ursus arctos isabellinus), also known as the Himalayan Red Bear, Isabelline Bear or Dzu-Teh, is a subspecies of the Brown Bear. The bear (as the Dzu-Teh) is thought to be the source of the legend of the Yeti.”
Wikipedia is merely repeating what many of us in cryptozoology, for decades, have considered a possibility.
“Dzu-Teh,” a Nepalese term, has also been associated with the legend of the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, with which it has been sometimes confused or mistaken. During the Daily Mail Abominable Snowman Expedition of 1954, Tom Stobbart encountered a “Dzu-Teh.” This is recounted by Ralph Izzard, the Daily Mail correspondent on the expedition, in his book The Abominable Snowman Adventure. The report was also printed in the Daily Mail expedition dispatches on May 7, 1954.
There is no real reason to associate Stobbart’s information with the term “Dzu-Teh,” however, and the use of the term by him, a non-native, can only have been presumptive. Source.
The Melton-Sartori-Sykes reply points out a significant conclusion:
“Importantly, for the thrust of the paper as a whole, the conclusion that these Himalayan ‘yeti’ samples were certainly not from a hitherto unknown primate is unaffected.”
So, we are left with…
Fact: The two samples of Yeti DNA do 100% match a modern polar bear.
Question: What are, at least, two polar bears doing in the Himalayan biological arena in the space of 40 years? And being termed “Yeti” by locals and outsiders?
Thanks for pointing this out, Loren. I’m alerting my blogger colleagues on the Beeb’s big Booboo, and referring to your post.
What doesn’t change here is the fact that the two hair samples come from an “out-of-place” animal. It is still very interesting, and makes one question the provenance of the hair samples. With the match being 100% polar bear, one wonders how what is essentially a marine mammal could survive in areas so far removed from coastal areas. It seems very unlikely that this would be the case. I believe the source of the samples must be called into further question.
the Dzu Teh was described in Hillary’s book High in the thin cold Air back in the early 60s as the Tibetan Blue Bear – Ursus arctos pruinosus, this bear has been known to regular attack Yaks & even goat herders huts in the search of food.
The Himalayan Brown Bear – Ursus arctos isabellinus has only recently started to be identified as the Dzu Teh, owing to the popularity of Reinhold Messner’s book on this creature as responsible for yeti sightings.
Then there is the Sykes DNA sampling which points to a Polar bear identity whether an ancient or modern day lineage if true, is quite spectacular & would be the zoological sensation of the century, i have a large collection of Asiatic books from the 1800s onwards incl hunting, zoology etc & in none of these has anything remotely resembling a polar bear been shot/captured in the Himalayas.
There is much on both the Brown/Blue bears, there is also a few stories of bear skins being slightly grey, the range of the Blue bear extends into China.