Not so abominable snowman

The abominable snowman is apparently not so abominable after all. In fact, it may be nothing more than an extinct bear. Say it isn’t so!

Unfortunately, it appears to be true — scientists at Oxford University say the legendary hairy Himalayan, also known as the yeti, is likely just a big, nasty bear. Genetics professor Bryan Sykes and his researchers tested the DNA of 57 hair samples that were assumed to come from the yeti.

Most of them were easily dismissed as horse, dog and human hair, or not hair at all. However, two samples were a 100 per cent match to the DNA from a polar bear that lived 40,000 years ago. Since the hairs were golden brown and red-brown, scientists speculate they may belong to some as yetunknown cross between polar bears and brown bears alive today.

We wonder what that bodes for the yeti’s North American equivalent — Sasquatch, a.k.a. Bigfoot. Will this mean an end to supermarket tabloid headlines that scream “I Had Bigfoot’s Baby!”? We hope not. It’s so much more fun to live with the fancy that there are still scary, hairy things that go bump in the night and that are eluding man’s best efforts to catch them.

Still, there’s hope this is not the end of the chase. As experts at England’s Natural History Museum point out, Sykes’ tests “neither prove nor disprove” the yeti’s existence. They only prove that the particular hair samples Sykes’ team examined have been disqualified as yeti hair.

Great. Let’s keep looking — but not too closely. It’s more fun that way.