The Real Manimal?

In April 2001, British zoologist Rob McCall presented a hair sample allegedly taken from a Himalayan Yeti to Bryan Sykes, professor of human genetics at the Oxford Institute of Molecular Medicine, one of the world's leading experts on DNA analysis.

Sykes said that laboratory analysis of the mysterious hairs yielded some DNA, but the experts were not able to identify it.

The Orang Pendek of Sumatra is much less familiar. After Marco Polo visited the island in 1292, he mentioned an encounter with an apelike animal that has come to be known as the Sumatran Yeti. Since 1818, various English and European explorers of the thick jungle growth of Sumatra have told of sighting an apeman that the native people call Orang Pendek, "little man of the forest."

Witnesses describe the Orang Pendek as standing about five feet tall and covered with short brown or orange hair. It walks upright without the assistance of its front fists, and its arms are of humanlike proportions. Many have asserted that they heard the Orang Pendeks conversing with one another in some unintelligible language. In 1918 L. C. Westenek, the Sumatran governor, wrote of several sightings, including one in which he claimed to have seen an Orang Pendek attempting to light a fire.

In September 2002 Hans Brunner, an associate of Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, acknowledged to be one of the world's most renowned hair experts, released his findings that alleged Orang Pendek hair samples that had been provided by a three-man team of British explorers were different from any species against which he had tested them.

Sources:

"do 'orang pendek' really exist…?" [online] http://www.jambiexplorer.com/content/orangpendek.htm, n.d.

henderson, mark. "yeti hair sample defies dna analysis," the times, april 2, 2001. [online] http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-108351,00.html.

"north-east adventurer set to prove abominable snowman exists." this is the north east, september 4, 2002. [online] http://www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/the_north_east/archive/2002/09/04/abom.re.html.

"scientists are hair's breadth from the yeti." the herald, september 5, 2002. [online] http://www.theheard.co.uk/news/archive/5-9-19102-23-54-40.html.