Yeti hunting
25 May 2012 by Evoluted New Media
The hunt for the Yeti is on as scientists intend to use the latest genetic techniques to investigate organic remains said to belong to the lost species.
Researchers from the University of Oxford and the Lausanne Museum of Zoology will focus on a collection of remains said to belong to Yetis collected by Swiss biologist Bernard Heuvelmans between 1950 and 2001. They will apply a systematic approach and employ the latest advances in genetic testing to identify the remains.
“It’s an area that any serious academic ventures into with a deal of trepidation, said Bryan Sykes, a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, who will lead the project. “It’s full of eccentric and downright misleading reports.”
Previous research has concluded that alleged Yeti remains are human, but there has been no systematic review of the material, Sykes said. Advances in forensic science have led to improvements in DNA testing, which could change how the bone, hair – particularly the hair shaft – and other material is analysed.
[caption id="attachment_28343" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Unexplained footprint (left) found in the Himalayas in 1976 by René de Milleville Credit Wikimedia"]
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“Theories as to their species identification vary from surviving collateral hominid species such as Homo neanderthalensis or Homo floresiensis, to large primates like Gigantopithecus widely thought to be extinct, to as yet unstudied primate species or local subspecies of black and brown bears,” Sykes said.
“Mainstream science remains unconvinced by these reports both through lack of testable evidence and the scope for fraudulent claims. However, recent advances in the techniques of genetic analysis of organic remains provide a mechanism for genus and species identification that is unbiased, unambiguous and impervious to falsification.”
If nothing else, the research may help us learn more about the early history of our species:
“It is possible that a scientific examination of these neglected specimens could tell us more about how Neanderthals and other early hominids interacted and spread around the world,” Sykes said.
