Alleged Yeti parts proved to have come from bears and dogs

The Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, is supposed to wander the Himalayas on two feet, staying mostly out of sight. But its legend has lived on, and people across the region have collected hair and bone samples alleged to belong to the mythical beast. A new genetic analysis of 12 of those samples published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B found that precisely zero of them belonged to a Yeti. The abominable snowman turns out to be a little bit dog and mostly bear.

The researchers gathered 12 samples—a tooth, a few paws, a bone, clumps of hair and the like—that Yeti believers from as far back as the 1930s have identified as belonging to the mythological being. Then, they analyzed DNA found in each sample. The results won’t be what Yeti lovers were hoping for: The genetic analyses revealed that the tooth had actually belonged to a dog and the other samples to a range of local bears.