Yeti Tales

Perhaps the most famous icon of the Himalayas, this biped ape is the stuff of both legend and scientific scrutiny. Sherpa folklore distinguishes three different kinds of yeti each with its own physical and behavioral traits. Western interest in the yeti can be traced back to the beginning of mountaineering in the Himalayas. The most famous 'evidence' from this time was the image of yeti tracks photographed by Eric Shipton during the 1951 attempt on Everest. While it had very little scientific value, it sure did bag a handsome $8,000 in a 2013 auction. There were also a lot of yeti hunts in the Himalayas by people as famous as Sir Ed Hillary and Reinhold Messner. Unfortunately for the believers, both of them have subsequently recanted their belief in the snowman. Perhaps the clue to the yeti was there all along in the local name of the animal, mithe, which is very similar to the local word for bears. In 2013, a research team at Oxford put out a call for 'yeti samples' and DNA tests showed that all the samples were from known animals, mostly bears. The one sent from Nepal belonged to a type of Himalaya antelope, Serow. Two samples from Ladakh and Bhutan however belonged to a now extinct form of polar bear. While that might turn out to be big news as more concrete evidence rolls in, it will still be short of the 'big one'\- an unknown hominid roaming the Himalayas. But as we all know, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and hence the story, the legend and the hunt continues.