Editing Yeti (section)

==Proposed explanations==
The misidentification of Himalayan wildlife has been proposed as an explanation for some Yeti sightings, including the ''chu-teh'', a [[Colobinae|langur]] monkey<ref name=Chu-Teh>{{cite web|url=http://www.cabernet.demon.co.uk/JAJ/E2K1954/slides/7.%20Yeti%20from%20Book-bw.html |title=Everest to Kangchenjunga 1954 " Viewing 7. Yeti from Book-bw |publisher=Cabernet.demon.co.uk |access-date=27 January 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070311053121/http://www.cabernet.demon.co.uk/JAJ/E2K1954/slides/7.%20Yeti%20from%20Book-bw.html |archive-date=11 March 2007 }}</ref> living at lower altitudes; the [[Tibetan blue bear]]; or the [[Himalayan brown bear]] or ''dzu-teh'', also known as the Himalayan red bear.<ref name=Chu-Teh/>

Similarly, it is possible that sightings have been deliberate hoaxes. [[James Randi]] notes that convincing costumes of gorillas or other apes have been used in films, which are more convincing than any representations of the Yeti provided by believers.<ref name="randi-1995" /> Randi also argues that there would need to be ''many'' creatures in order to maintain the gene pool, and given the proposed size of the Yeti, it is hard to imagine that they have been so elusive if they are real.<ref name="randi-1995" />

A well publicised expedition to [[Bhutan]] initially reported that a hair sample had been obtained, which by [[DNA]] analysis by Professor [[Bryan Sykes]] could not be matched to any known animal.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070929091810/http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=18&id=149706&usrsess=1 Mystery Primate]. The Statesmen</ref> Analysis completed after the media release, however, clearly showed the samples were from a [[brown bear]] (''Ursus arctos'') and an [[Asian black bear|Asiatic black bear]] (''Ursus thibetanus'').<ref>{{cite book |author=Chandler, H.C.|year=2003|title= Using Ancient DNA to Link Culture and Biology in Human Populations | publisher=Unpublished D. Phil. thesis. University of Oxford, Oxford }}</ref>

In 1986, [[South Tyrol]]ean mountaineer [[Reinhold Messner]] claimed in his autobiography ''My Quest for the Yeti'' that the Yeti is actually the endangered [[Himalayan brown bear]], ''Ursus arctos isabellinus'', or [[Tibetan blue bear]], ''U. a. pruinosus'', which can walk both upright or on all fours.<ref>Trull, D. (1998) [https://web.archive.org/web/20040605022325/http://www.parascope.com/en/articles/yetiBear.htm The Grizzly Truth About the Yeti&nbsp;– Stalking the Abominable Snow-Bear].</ref><ref name=tg>{{cite news |last=Wollaston |first=Sam |title=The yeti hunter |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/aug/10/travelbooks.samwollaston |access-date=23 February 2014 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=10 August 2000}}</ref>

The 1983 [[Barun Valley]] discoveries prompted three years of research on the 'tree bear' possibility by Taylor, Fleming, John Craighead and Tirtha Shrestha. From that research, the conclusion was that the [[Asiatic black bear]], when about two years old, spends much time in trees to avoid attack by larger male bears on the ground ('ground bears'). During this tree period (that may last two years), young bears train their inner claw outward, allowing an opposable grip. The imprint in the snow of a hind paw coming over the front paw that appears to have a hallux, especially when the bear is going slightly uphill so the hind pawprint extends the overprint backward, makes a hominid-appearing track, both in that it is elongated like a human foot, but with a "thumb", and in that a four-footed animal's gait now appears bipedal.<ref>Covey, Jacob (2006) ''Beasts: Traditional Hidden Creatures'', Seattle, Washington, Fantagraphic Books/WW Norton, pp. 191–93.</ref>  This "yeti discovery", in the words of ''[[National Geographic Magazine]]'' editor Bill Garrett, "[by] on-site research sweeps away much of the 'smoke and mirrors' and gives us a believable yeti".<ref>Taylor, back cover.</ref>

This fieldwork in Nepal's Barun Valley led directly to the initiation of the [[Makalu-Barun National Park]] that protected over half a million acres in 1991, and across the border with China, the [[Qomolangma national nature preserve]] in the [[Tibet Autonomous Region]] that protected over six million acres. In the words of Honorary President of the [[American Alpine Club]], Robert H. Bates, this yeti discovery "has apparently solved the mystery of the yeti, or at least part of it, and in so doing added to the world's great wildlife preserves",<ref>{{cite book|author=Davis, Wade |title=The Clouded Leopard: A Book of Travels|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YLIdAQAAIAAJ|year=2007|publisher=Tauris Parke Paperbacks|isbn=978-1-84511-453-4}}</ref> so that the shy animal, and the mysteries and myths of the Himalayas that it represents, can continue to live within a protected area nearly the size of Switzerland.

In 2003, Japanese researcher and mountaineer Dr. Makoto Nebuka published the results of his twelve-year [[Linguistics|linguistic]] study, postulating that the word "Yeti" is a corruption of the word "meti", a regional dialect term for a "bear". Nebuka claims that ethnic Tibetans fear and worship the bear as a supernatural being.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.iras.ucalgary.ca/~volk/sylvia/Tib.htm |title=Tibet: Mystic Trivia |publisher=Iras.ucalgary.ca |date=26 September 1998 |access-date=27 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120113172225/http://www.iras.ucalgary.ca/~volk/sylvia/Tib.htm |archive-date=13 January 2012 |url-status=dead  }}</ref> Nebuka's claims were subject to almost immediate criticism, and he was accused of linguistic carelessness. Dr. Raj Kumar Pandey, who has researched both Yetis and mountain languages, said "it is not enough to blame tales of the mysterious beast of the Himalayas on words that rhyme but mean different things."<ref>{{cite news |author=Lak, Daniel |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3143020.stm |title=Yeti's 'non-existence' hard to bear |work=BBC News |date=26 September 2003 |access-date=27 January 2012 |archive-date=13 January 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080113155324/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3143020.stm |url-status=live }}</ref>

Some speculate these reported creatures could be present-day specimens of the [[extinction|extinct]] giant ape ''[[Gigantopithecus]]''.<ref>Gilman, Laura Anne (2002) ''Yeti, The Abominable Snowman'', The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., {{ISBN|0-8239-3565-5}}</ref><ref>Schmalzer, Sigrid (2008) ''The People's Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identity in Twentieth-century China'', The University of Chicago Press, p. 220, {{ISBN|978-0-226-73859-8}}</ref><ref>Shrestha, Tej Kumar (1997) ''Mammals of Nepal'', Nepal: R. K. Printers, p. 352, {{ISBN|0-9524390-6-9}}</ref><ref>Truet, Turin and Gilman, Laura Anne (2011) ''Searching For Yeti: The Abominable Snowman'', The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., p. 37, {{ISBN|978-1-4488-4764-8}}</ref> However, the Yeti is generally described as bipedal, and most scientists believe ''Gigantopithecus'' to have been [[Quadrupedalism|quadrupedal]], and so massive that, unless it evolved specifically as a bipedal ape (like the [[Hominidae|hominids]]), walking upright would have been even more difficult for the now extinct primate than it is for its extant quadrupedal relative, the [[orangutan]].

In 2013, a call was put out by scientists from the universities of [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] and [[University of Lausanne|Lausanne]] for people claiming to have samples from these sorts of creatures. A mitochondrial DNA analysis of the [[MT-RNR1|12S RNA]] gene was undertaken on samples of hair from an unidentified animal from [[Ladakh]] in northern India on the west of the Himalayas, and one from [[Bhutan]]. These samples were compared with those in [[GenBank]], the international repository of gene sequences, and matched a sample from an ancient polar bear jawbone found in [[Svalbard|Svalbard, Norway]] that dates back to between 40,000 and 120,000 years ago.<ref name=bbc>{{cite web|title=British scientist 'solves' mystery of Himalayan yetis|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24564487|publisher=BBC|date=17 October 2013|access-date=20 June 2018|archive-date=5 May 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190505191452/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24564487|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Genetic analysis of hair samples attributed to yeti, bigfoot and other anomalous primates |date=July 2014 |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society |volume=281 |issue=1789 |pages=20140161 |doi=10.1098/rspb.2014.0161|pmid=24990672 |last1=Sykes |first1=B. C. |last2=Mullis |first2=R. A. |last3=Hagenmuller |first3=C. |last4=Melton |first4=T. W. |last5=Sartori |first5=M. |pmc=4100498 }}</ref> The result suggests that, barring hoaxes of planted samples or contamination, bears in these regions may have been taken to be yeti.<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/17/yeti-dna-ancient-polar-bear-scientists |title=Has DNA really solved the mystery of the yeti? |author=Alok Jha |work=Guardian |date= 17 October 2013 }}</ref> Professor of evolutionary genetics at the [[University of Cambridge]], Bill Amos, doubted the samples were of polar bears in the Himalayas, but was "90% convinced that there is a bear in these regions that has been mistaken for a yeti". Professor [[Bryan Sykes]], whose team carried out the analysis of the samples at Oxford, has his own theory. He believes that the samples may have come from a hybrid species of bear produced from a mating between a brown bear and a polar bear.<ref name=bbc/><ref name="AP-20131017">{{cite news |last=Lawless |first=Jill |title=DNA Links Mysterious Yeti To Ancient Polar Bear |url=http://apnews.excite.com/article/20131017/DA9G5VB01.html |date=17 October 2013 |agency=Associated Press |access-date=22 October 2013 |archive-date=23 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131023060552/http://apnews.excite.com/article/20131017/DA9G5VB01.html |url-status=live }}</ref> A research of 12S rRNA published in 2015 revealed that the hair samples collected are most likely those of brown bears.<ref>{{cite journal |last1= Gutiérrez|first1= Eliécer|last2= Pine|first2= Ronald|date= 16 March 2015|title= No need to replace an "anomalous" primate (Primates) with an "anomalous" bear (Carnivora, Ursidae)|journal= ZooKeys|issue= 487|pages= 141–54|doi= 10.3897/zookeys.487.9176|pmc=4366689|pmid=25829853|bibcode= 2015ZooK..487..141G|doi-access= free}}</ref> In 2017, a new analysis compared mtDNA sequences of bears from the region with DNA extracted from hair and other samples claimed to have come from yeti. It included hair thought to be from the same preserved specimen as the anomalous Sykes sample, and showed it to have been a Himalayan brown bear, while other purported yeti samples were actually from the Tibetan blue bear, Asiatic black bear and a domestic dog.<ref name="lan">{{Cite journal |last1=Lan |first1=T. |last2=Gill |first2=S. |last3=Bellemain |first3=E. |last4=Bischof |first4=R. |last5=Zawaz |first5=M.A. |last6=Lindqvist |first6=C. |date=6 December 2017 |title=Evolutionary history of enigmatic bears in the Tibetan Plateau–Himalaya region and the identity of the yeti |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |volume=284 |issue=1868 |page=20171804 |doi=10.1098/rspb.2017.1804 |pmid=29187630 |pmc=5740279}}</ref>

In 2017, [[Daniel C. Taylor]] published a comprehensive analysis of the century-long Yeti literature, giving added evidence to the (''Ursus thibetanus'') explanation, building on the initial Barun Valley discoveries. This book gave a meticulous explanation for the iconic Yeti footprint photographed by [[Eric Shipton]] in 1950, the 1972 Cronin-McNeely print, as well all other unexplained Yeti footprints. To complete this explanation, Taylor also located a never-before published photograph in the archives of the Royal Geographical Society, taken in 1950 by [[Eric Shipton]], that included scratches that are clearly bear nail marks.<ref>Daniel C Taylor, "Yeti: The Ecology of a Mystery,” (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017)</ref>