A new university-backed project is aiming to investigate cryptic species such as the yeti whose existence is unproven, through genetic testing.
To do so, researchers from Oxford University and the Lausanne Museum of Zoology are asking any person with a collection of cryptozoological substance to submit descriptions of it. The researchers will then ask for hair and other samples for genetic identification.
“I’m demanding and inviting the cryptozoologists to come up with the evidence as an alternative of complaining that science is rejecting what they have to say,” mentioned geneticist Bryan Sykes of the University of Oxford.
Even though Sykes does not assume to find solid evidence of a yeti or Bigfoot monster, he says he is retaining an open mind and hopes to identify maybe 20 of the suspect samples.
Along the way, he’d be content if he found some unknown species.
“It would be fantastic if one or much more turned out to be species we don”t know about, possibly primates, perhaps even collateral hominids,” Sykes told LiveScience.
The project becoming led by Sykes and Michel Sartori of the zoology museum is named the Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project.
The collection phase of the project will run through September, with genetic testing following that through November.
Sources and more information:
• Bigfoot & Yeti DNA Study Gets Serious
A new university-backed project aims to investigate cryptic species such as the yeti whose existence is unproven, through genetic testing. Researchers from Oxford University and the Lausanne Museum of Zoology are asking anyone with a collection of cryptozoological material to submit descriptions of it.
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