BrainStuff Classics: Are Yeti Just a Bunch of Bears?

Genetics says "probably." In this episode of BrainStuff, learn what researchers found when they submitted supposed Yeti samples for genetic testing.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
I'm Lorn mogel Bomb, and this is another classic episode
of the podcast. In this one, we look at what
a team of researchers found when they tested samples supposedly
collected from YETI spoiler alert, it wasn't all that mysterious.

(00:25):
Hey brain Stuff, I'm Lauren vogel Bomb. And you know
everybody loves a good cryptid. If the classic creatures of
legend and hearsay, the Luckness Monster, for example, or sasquatch
are too campy for your tastes, perhaps your interest would
be piqued by the grout slang, a giant snake with
an elephant's head said to hang out in caves of
northwestern South Africa, or the yowie, basically the bigfoot of

(00:46):
the Australian Outback, or the mepingaree, a giant sloth like
ape reportedly lurking in the Amazon rainforest on the border
between Brazil and Bolivia. If your game to dive into
the waters of cryptozoology, you'll be there a while because
they are fathomless. Science, however, will rarely dive in there
with you, but it has on occasion made an exception

(01:07):
for the Yeti. If you were to ask, hey, are
the Yeti just a bunch of bears, genetics would say yes.
The Yeti, or the great white abominable snowman of the Himalayas,
is one of the world's most beloved cryptids. It's a
major figure in the folklore of Nepal, and hikers are
constantly reporting to have seen a giant, white ape like

(01:28):
creature stalking around the mountains. Some even claim to have
brought home a piece of one of these beasts, a
tuft of hair, a bone, some skin, a tooth, or
some abominable dung. These Yeti souvenirs have made their way
into museums and private collections over the years, and now
nine of them formed the basis for a study investigating
the reality behind the folk tales. The study, published in

(01:49):
the Proceedings of the Royal Society b finds that of
the alleged Yeti bits genetically sequenced by the international team
of researchers, all revealed themselves to be of very commonplace origin,
eight bears and a dog. There was diversity in the
species of bears. One Asian black bear was represented, one
Himalayan brown bear and six Tibetan brown bears. The researchers

(02:11):
suggest that similar genetic studies should be able to help
unravel other cryptid legends. Where previous genetic studies of possible
cryptids looked only at mitochondrial DNA, this research team gave
those cave bones and wads of hair the full works,
applied PCR amplification, mitochondrial sequencing, mitochondrial genome assembly, and phylogenetic analysis.

(02:33):
According to the researchers, this makes it the most rigorous
analysis of anomalous or mythical hominid like creatures to date.
The team also sequenced mitochondrial DNA of twenty three Asian
bears and compared them with bears around the world. They
found the Tibetan brown bear to be more closely related
to American bears than they are to their neighbors, the
Himalayan bear. In fact, the two species probably split along

(02:55):
two separate evolutionary lineages around six hundred and fifty thousand
years ago during a major ice age. And just in
case you were wondering who compiled the bear parts that
the team used for their research, they were assembled by
a twenty sixteen Animal Planet Team for a special titled
YETI or Not, which explored the myths behind the monster.

(03:21):
Today's episode is based on the article are the Yetti
just a bunch of Bears? Genetics Says Yes? On HowStuffWorks
dot Com written by Jesslyn Shields. Brainstuff is production of
iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced
by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.