text: Eliécer Gutiérrez, a researcher who helped debunk a recent study on the yeti, with bear skulls at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. 
   
   The yeti, a legendary shaggy, bipedal beast from the Himalayas, made headlines last year when a geneticist said he had solved the mystery of its origins. But now, scientists have found the hair samples used in that study didn't come from a mysterious animal, but rather from the Himalayan brown bear. 
   
   "There is essentially no reason to believe that they [the hairs] belong to a species other than the brown bear," said one the new study's researchers, Eliécer Gutiérrez, a postdoctoral fellow of evolutionary biology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. 
   
   Gutiérrez and a colleague re-examined a finding reported in 2014 in which geneticist Bryan Sykes and his colleagues looked at two hair samples from the Himalayan region: One sample came from an aggressive animal walking on its hind legs that was shot by a hunter about 40 years ago in northern India; the other had been found in Bhutan in a high-altitude bamboo forest, according to that study, published in the journal the Proceedings of The Royal Society B. 
   
   After a genetic analysis, Sykes' team said they had linked the "yeti" hair samples to the jawbone of an ancient polar bear (Ursus maritimus) that lived in Norway. It's likely the hairs came from "a previously unrecognized bear species," living in the Himalayas, the researchers wrote in the study. In fact, the species may have been a hybrid descendent of U. maritimus and the brown bear (Ursus arctos) of the Himalayas, the researchers said. [Rumor or Reality: The 10 Creatures of Cryptozoology] 
   
   Perhaps this unknown bear inspired the legend of the yeti, the researchers said in the study. 
   
   But Gutiérrez said he became skeptical of the study when he noticed the researchers only used a fragment of a gene to identify the species. He and a colleague looked up the genetic sequence of the two hair samples in GenBank, a database of publicly available DNA sequences. 
   
   "We made this discovery that basically that fragment of DNA is not informative to tell apart two species of bears: the brown bear and [modern-day Alaskan] polar bear," Gutiérrez told Live Science. The polar bear does not live in the Himalayas, so the hair samples likely belong to the Himalayan brown bear, he said. 
   
   The new study is the second to discredit the 2014 research. In a 2014 letter published in the same journal, two researchers also showed Sykes' team had not sufficiently analyzed their "yeti" data. 
   
   "Once they had determined that two of their samples were a match to a polar bear, they should have run further analyses on the extracted DNA to look at other regions of the mitochondrial genome [DNA passed down by the mother] in order to double-check this controversial result," said one of the letter's authors, Ceiridwen Edwards, a researcher in ancient DNA studies at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. 
   
   "Instead, after (incorrectly) establishing a direct link to a 40,000-year-old polar bear sequence, they then used this misinformation in the publicity for the paper," Edwards told Live Science in an email. 
   
   A researcher responds 
   
   Still, the new study doesn't discount his 2014 finding, said Sykes, a professor of human genetics at the University of Oxford. [Image Gallery: 'Yeti Footprint' Photos Up for Auction] 
   
   "What mattered most to us was that these two hairs were definitely not from unknown primates," Sykes told Live Science in an email. "The explanation by Gutiérrez and [Ronald] Pine might be right, or it might not be." 
   
   A Himalayan brown bear cub. Credit: Artyom Ernst Shutterstock.com 
   
   The only way to get to the bottom of the case is to find "fresh material" from an animal to see if it matches the genetic fragment they studied for the 2014 paper, Sykes said. 
   
   "The real heroes of the piece are the people who actually went to the Himalayas, spoke to the local people, found these hairs and then contributed them to the study," Sykes said. "This is the Himalayas, not Central Park." 
   
   He added that his book on the yeti project, "The Nature of the Beast" will be published by Coronet on April 9, and will contain additional details about his efforts to learn more about the animal behind the legend. 
   
   In spite of the new study, the public will likely continue to believe in the yeti, said Daniel Loxton, an editor of Junior Skeptic, a website published by the Skeptics Society, an educational nonprofit. 
   
   "People are fascinated by monsters, and they're fascinated by mysteries in general," Loxton said. 
   
   The yeti is especially puzzling because there are multiple cultures and languages in the Himalayas, making it difficult "to disentangle Western folklore from local legend from genuine anthropological or zoological fact on the ground," Loxton said. 
   
   It's common for people to mistake a bear for a yeti, particularly a Himalayan brown bear, as this bear can walk on its hind legs, he said. But, just like the Loch Ness monster, people will probably continue to believe in the yeti legend. 
   
   "Loch Ness is not as big as the Himalayas," Loxton said. "It is a finite body of water. It has been extensively scanned by sonar. It's been observed for decades. There's just really no possibility that there's a plesiosaur in Loch Ness, or even anything of comparable size." 
   
   "But people aren't giving up on the Loch Ness monster," he said. "I don't think they ever will. So I think the yeti will probably exist as long as there are people to think about mountains." 
   
   The study was published online today (March 16) in the journal ZooKeys. 
   
   Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. ||||| Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption It had been proposed that hairs said to be from the yeti matched the DNA of ancient polar bears 
   
   A theory that the mythical yeti is a rare polar bear-brown bear hybrid animal has been challenged. 
   
   Last year, Oxford University genetics professor Bryan Sykes revealed the results of DNA tests on hairs said to be from the Abominable Snowman. 
   
   The tests matched the samples with the DNA of an ancient polar bear. 
   
   But two other scientists have said re-analysis of the same data shows the hairs belong to the Himalayan bear, a sub-species of the brown bear. 
   
   The results of the new research by Ceiridwen Edwards and Ross Barnett have been published in the Royal Society journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 
   
   Among Dr Edwards' previous work was an attempt to carry out DNA analysis of a sample taken from bones of a polar bear washed into caves in north west Scotland 18,000 years ago. 
   
   Image copyright AFP Image caption A sub species of the brown bear could be behind the Himalayan myth 
   
   According to legend, the yeti is a large and elusive ape-like beast. 
   
   For many years experts have been seeking a scientific explanation for the Abominable Snowman. 
   
   Prof Sykes, along with other genetics experts, conducted DNA tests on hairs from two unidentified animals, one from Ladakh - in northern India on the west of the Himalayas - and the other from Bhutan, 800 miles (1,285km) further east. 
   
   The results were then compared with the genomes of other animals stored on a database of all published DNA sequences. 
   
   The scientists found that he had a 100% match with a sample from an ancient polar bear jawbone found in Svalbard, Norway, that dates back to between 40,000 and 120,000 years ago - a time when the polar bear and closely-related brown bear were separating as different species. 
   
   The species are closely related and are known to interbreed where their territories overlap. 
   
   Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption The doctor will see you now: Experts have sought scientific explanations to the yeti legend 
   
   The sample from Ladakh came from the mummified remains of a creature shot by a hunter around 40 years ago, while the second sample was in the form of a single hair, found in a bamboo forest by an expedition of filmmakers about 10 years ago. 
   
   The samples were subjected to the most advanced tests available. 
   
   Prof Sykes said the most likely explanation for the myth was that the animal was a hybrid of polar bears and brown bears. 
   
   The research was reported widely by the media last year and, in July this year, published by the Royal Society. 
   
   However, following re-analysis of the same data, Dr Edwards and Dr Barnett argue that the hybrid bear does not exist in the Himalayas. 
   
   They said the previous research mistakenly matched DNA to an ancient Pleistocene polar bear, instead of a modern polar bear. 
   
   In their paper, Dr Edwards and Dr Barnett said their tests identified the hairs as being from a rare type of brown bear. 
   
   The scientists said: "The Himalayan bear is a sub-species of the brown bear that lives in the higher reaches of the Himalayas, in remote, mountainous areas of Pakistan, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and India. 
   
   "Its populations are small and isolated, and it is extremely rare in many parts of its range. 
   
   "The common name for these bears in the region is Dzu-teh, a Nepalese term meaning 'cattle bear', and they have long been associated with the myth of the yeti." 
   
   Mountain monsters 
   
   Image copyright AP 
   
   The yeti, also known as the Abominable Snowman, is said to be a large ape-like beast that roams the Himalayas in Nepal and Tibet. 
   
   Bigfoot, or Sasquatch (above), is the legendary beast of North America. Explanations to sightings include hoaxers using a gorilla suit. 
   
   The Big Grey Man of Ben Macdui is said to haunt the UK's second highest mountain. Scientific explanations for this Scottish creature include a meteorological phenomenon known as the brocken spectre, which causes a person's shadow to be cast on low cloud. 
   
   Prof Sykes and the other members of the team behind the earlier yeti hairs analysis have acknowledged that there was an error caused by an incomplete search of the DNA database used. 
   
   However, they said in a statement: "Importantly, for the thrust of the paper as a whole, the conclusion that these Himalayan 'yeti' samples were certainly not from a hitherto unknown primate is unaffected." 
   
   The response added: "We stressed in the original paper that the true identity of this intriguing animal needs to be refined, preferably by sequence data from fresh tissue samples derived from a living specimen where DNA degradation is no longer a concern." 
   
   Other hair samples said to belong to the yeti have been scrutinised by experts before. 
   
   In 2008, scientists in the US examined hairs given to the BBC which some had claimed were from a yeti. 
   
   The scientists concluded that the hairs - obtained from the north-east Indian state of Meghalaya - actually belonged to a species of Himalayan goat known as a Himalayan goral. 
   
   Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption Dr Edwards has previously attempted to unlock the secrets of polar bear remains found in Scotland 
   
   In 2007, Dr Edwards began a process to extract DNA from what are believed to be the only polar bear remains to be found in Britain. 
   
   The skull, of which only a part survives, was discovered at the Bone Caves in Inchnadamph, in Assynt, Sutherland, in 1927. 
   
   Prehistoric remains of animals - including an almost complete skeleton of a brown bear - and humans have been uncovered in the caves. 
   
   Dr Edwards hoped to shed light on what the polar bear was doing in Assynt 18,000 years ago. 
   
   However, DNA had not survived in the bone fragment. 
   
   Dr Edwards was also involved in a DNA study of ancient brown bear bones that suggested the maternal ancestors of modern polar bears were from Ireland. 
   
   Previously, it was believed that today's polar bears were most closely related to brown bears living on islands off the coast of Alaska. ||||| No evidence of a taxonomically unrecognized bear in the Himalayas
target: – Research led by an Oxford scientist has suggested there could be something to legends of the yeti, even if it's not quite the creature legends would suggest. Bryan Sykes has argued, based on genetic analysis, that two hair samples collected by yeti enthusiasts in the Himalayas could indeed point to an animal we didn't know existed today, though it would be something like an ancient polar bear rather than something like Bigfoot. But Eliécer E. Gutiérrez of the Smithsonian Institution and Ronald Pine at the University of Kansas are now raining—or perhaps snowing—on Sykes' parade, NBC News reports. They write in a study at ZooKeys that there's not enough information to suggest the hairs were from an unknown species: "We have concluded that there is no reason to believe that the two samples came from anything other than Brown Bears." Gutiérrez and Pine were bothered by Sykes' use of just a "very short fragment" of the sequenced gene to arrive at his conclusion. LiveScience reports they determined the samples could have come from a brown bear or polar bear; based on the Himalayan location, the brown bear is the likely source, they maintain. Theirs is the second study to question Sykes' findings: The BBC reported in December that another group of researchers found that a brown bear subspecies was the source of the hairs. But Sykes isn't giving up just yet. He calls the new research "entirely statistical," noting "the only way forward is to find a living bear that matches the (genetic material) and study fresh material from it. Which involves getting off your butt, not an activity I usually associate with desk-bound molecular taxonomists," he tells NBC. Read more on where Sykes got his samples.