In news no one was Yeti for, scientists say there is no such thing as the Abominable Snowman, and people who claim to have seen one of the creatures actually just spotted a bear.
The killjoys from the University of Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences wrote in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B that their findings suggest "Yetis" are three different bears that live in the Himalayas: the Asian black, Tibetan brown, and Himalayan brown. Researchers were given access to bone fragments and samples of skin, hair, and feces that were said to be from Yetis, and found that they were the remains of 23 different bears, Agence France-Presse reports. The team reconstructed the mitochondrial genomes of the bears, and determined that the brown bears at the top of the Tibetan Plateau and brown bears in the western Himalayan mountains are two separate populations.
The Yeti is part of the folklore of the Himalayas, described as being a "metoh-kangi," or "man-bear snowman," and there have been several expeditions with researchers attempting to track down one of the elusive beasts. There is some hope for those who can't imagine living in a world where Yetis might not exist — University of Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences associate professor Charlotte Lindqvist, lead scientist for the latest study, told AFP "it is impossible to completely rule out that they live. People love a mystery."