The Oxford 'anomalous primate' DNA study
In 2014 Oxford geneticist Bryan Sykes and colleagues published DNA results for 30 hair samples attributed to yetis, Bigfoot, almasty and orang pendek from around the world: all came from known animals or humans.
2014 CE · 51.75, -1.26 · status: explained
The account
Most samples were black or brown bear, with cow, horse, dog, sheep, deer, raccoon, porcupine and others. Two Himalayan samples, from Ladakh and Bhutan, matched an ancient polar bear, prompting headlines about a possible unknown bear hybrid. The study appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
The sceptical view
A 2015 re-analysis by Eliécer Gutiérrez and Ronald Pine, and another by Ceiridwen Edwards and Ross Barnett, showed the 'polar bear' match was an artefact of a short DNA fragment, and the hairs were most likely ordinary Himalayan brown bear.
Connections in the atlas
- The Ketchum Bigfoot DNA study
- Reinhold Messner's yeti
- Van Herwaarden's orang pendek
- Yeti relics DNA study (Lindqvist, 2017)
- Zana of Abkhazia
- Marie-Jeanne Koffmann's almasty survey
- Yeti
- Bigfoot (Sasquatch)