DNA Analysis Debunks Bigfoot Myth, Points to Unknown Bear Species

time.com...

Bad news for cryptozoologists, good news for zoologists?

Interesting little article there. However, I am still not sure if that explains every single sighting and encounter over the decades. I dont think every "encounter" can be easily explained off as being a Bear or someone in a ghillie suit. I truly feel as if there is something out there that is very much an unknown creature that isnt something we have ever studied or seen before.

If I read the article correctly (it was posted already) it means that not only is there a bear out there we thought was extinct, but there were two other samples not matching anything in the database...

So rather than discount Yeti or Bigfoot, it validates that there are some big mammals we don't yet know about... if I'm correct in my reading comprehension and about the particular article in question.

Also, the "human" dna fits with the view that these things are closer to human than ape... so this study doesn't answer anything, except to tell us what we already knew about random clumps of hair and pointing to a polar bear cousin in the Himalayas.

Keep in mind, I am not saying every sighting is a genuine Bigfoot sighting either. I have no doubt in my mind that there have been hoaxes, mistaken identity among things when it comes to overall Bigfoot lore.

I posted this on another thread earlier.

Basically a scientist matched most of the DNA to bears, cows, canines etc though two samples matched Paleolithic Polar bear DNA.

However another scientist was asked to verify this and concluded that those two samples matched MODERN Polar bear DNA suggesting there could be a brown bear / polar bear hybrid in some areas.

It isn't suggesting any ''Yeti'', in fact is confirming that all of the samples from supposed 'Yeti sightings' weren't 'Yeti' at all, and that many could well be a form of bear, albeit with some Polar Bear DNA, which is possible and normal.

Some of the samples weren't even hair, but fibres / grass etc.

www.theguardian.com...

The scientific team received a total of 57 hair samples. Visual, microscopic and infrared fluorescence examinations eliminated two samples as "obvious non-hairs" (one was plant material, the other was glass fibre). Of the remaining screened samples, 36 were selected for genetic analysis based either on their origin or historic interest.

The samples were cleaned, the DNA was extracted and a short segment of mitochondrial 12S ribosomal DNA was amplified and sequenced. This highly-conserved DNA fragment is suitable for identifying species to genus but was not sufficient to distinguish between closely related species. Thus, this amplified fragment could identify the sample as originating from a canid, but it was not sufficient to differentiate between, say, a wolf, Canis lupus, a coyote, Canis latrans, and a domestic dog, Canis domesticus.

DNA was recovered from 30 of the specially selected hair samples. DNA analysis revealed they originated from a variety of well-known animals, including American black bear (6 samples), canids (4 samples), cows (4 samples), horses (4 samples), brown bear (2 samples), deer (1 sample), North American porcupine (1 sample), sheep (1 sample), Malaysian tapir (1 sample), serow (1 sample), human (1 sample), and even raccoons (2 samples) – remarkable since one sample identified as a raccoon was collected in Russia, which is far removed from the raccoon's natural range.

Although this study didn't reveal anything new to those of us who stay informed about cryptozoology, two samples returned strange matches. Both samples (25025 and 25191) were 100 percent matches to DNA recovered from a Pleistocene polar bear, Ursus maritimus, that lived more than 40 000 years ago on Svalbard. Weirdly, the authors report that neither sample gave a 100 percent match to modern polar bear DNA sequences, and neither specimen originated from within the polar bear's modern day range.

Professor Sykes and his colleagues elaborate (somewhat) in their paper about these two peculiar samples: "Hair sample no. 25025 came from an animal shot by an experienced hunter in Ladakh, India ca 40 years ago who reported that its behaviour was very different from a brown bear Ursus arctos with which he was very familiar."

A 100 percent match between two geographically distant hair samples to a Pleistocene polar bear is … spectacularly bizarre, in my opinion. So I contacted one of the world's foremost authorities of polar bear evolutionary history, Frank Hailer, a postdoctoral researcher at the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (Biodiversität und Klima Forschungszentrum) in Germany. Dr Hailer compared the authors' two reported DNA sequences to previously published data from other polar and brown bears but was unable to confirm the authors' reported results.

Dr Hailer instead found that the two sequences were 100 percent identical to a polar bear that was sampled somewhere between Siberia and Alaska approximately 10 years ago. He found that the Pleistocene polar bear sequence differed at one position from the sequence data reported from the authors' Himalayan "Yeti" samples. So, unless the database sequence submitted by the authors is incorrect, their hair samples actually do carry a DNA sequence that is present in modern polar bears.

But why might polar bear DNA be found in brown bears? A few years ago, Dr Hailer and his colleagues showed that polar bears hybridised with brown bears long ago in the late Pleistocene (doi:10.1126/science.1216424), so that may be the reason for Sykes and colleagues' genetic findings. Additionally, although several bear species occur in and around the Himalayas, none have so far been identified as carrying mitochondrial DNA from polar bears.

"If true, this would raise some interesting questions about the movement of polar bears, or at least their genes, outside their current arctic distribution", writes Dr Hailer in email.

"Brown bears might transport introgressed polar bear alleles far beyond the polar bear range. Of course, this assumes that the reported geographic origin of the hair samples is correct.

I'm still waiting for a plesiosaur to pop up.

Yea? where ya been lookin?

a reply to: Nephalim

A hidden tropical region in the antarctic....obviously.

On a side note, and only half joking, I would believe an advanced bear species before bigfoots.



Think about it, they mastered dance, can use human forms of.transportation, will sacrifice brain cells to get high, pimp out their celebrities. They even ractice oral sex and strip!
m.youtube.com...

a reply to: -Blackout-

Damned funny how all of those "bear" sightings are always reared up on two feet and walking like a biped.

a reply to: -Blackout-

The right title should be:

DNA Analysis Debunks Some Bigfoot Samples That Point To Unknown Bear Species...

57 samples taken from Museums. Not peer reviewed. DNA of extinct polar bears mixed with brown bears.

Case solved & closed.

Nothing to see here...move along...

I am not a believer of the Bigfoot Myth but the myth isn't debunked from this analysis. Far from it. All it proved (and even Hailer isn't 100% sure) is that those samples were not from a Bigfoot.

originally posted by: Aliensun
a reply to: -Blackout-

Damned funny how all of those "bear" sightings are always reared up on two feet and walking like a biped.

Bears are capble of doiing. There's an extremely rare species of Bear in the region called Tibetan blue Bear. They are so rare that we barely have pictures of those animals. Yeti sightings could be actually Tibetan blue Bears.

These storys have some truth behind them.

Join members Signalfire, Madmac5150, jacygirl, Comfortablynumb, and Druid42 this Monday @ 10pm EST as they discuss this topic.

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a reply to: -Blackout-

Looks to me like they are fishing. Some samples of hair are known species, so the whole idea is "debunked"? Some might be some unknown bear, in other countries, so it's "debunked"??? Not even close. Nice how they ignored all the DNA evidence that shows something close to human, but not quite. Useless article from a useless publication, in my opinion.

Maybe they wrote it to give s newer search result for people looking up the actual DNA results that were released not too long back, that have been so controversial.