{"id":3793,"date":"2019-05-20T16:25:24","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T16:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/?p=3793"},"modified":"2019-05-20T16:27:08","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T16:27:08","slug":"dr-david-roberts-it-may-not-be-the-yeti-but-bizarre-species-are-still-being-discovered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/2019\/05\/20\/dr-david-roberts-it-may-not-be-the-yeti-but-bizarre-species-are-still-being-discovered\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr David Roberts: “It may not be the Yeti, but bizarre species are still being discovered.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commenting on the recent claim by the Indian army that they found footprints of a ‘Yeti’, Dr David Roberts,\u00a0<\/a>an expert in extinct species at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology<\/a> (DICE), said, “The existence of the Yeti has never been conclusively proven and, given the location of sightings, it is highly unlikely a mythological anthropoid is wandering the snow-capped Himalayas.<\/p>\n

“The recent supposed\u00a0sighting of the Yeti\u2019s footprints<\/a>\u00a0has led to a degree of ridicule, and the\u00a0footprints\u00a0more likely have other explanations\u00a0than a mythical beast \u2013 such as the wanderings of a bear.<\/p>\n

“While the suggestion of such a sighting may be somewhat humorous, as pointed out by the eminent conservationist Sir Peter Scott, in\u00a0his\u00a0formal naming\u00a0of the Loch Ness Monster\u00a0with\u00a0Robert Rines, often\u00a0species have no legal protection until they have been scientifically named.<\/p>\n

“In the case of the Loch Ness Monster, Scott gave it the scientific name,\u00a0Nessiteras rhombopteryx<\/em>, based on a blurred image of a supposed flipper. However, soon after its naming, the Scottish MP,\u00a0Nicholas Fairbairn, pointed out that\u00a0the name was an\u00a0anagram -\u200b ‘Monster hoax by Sir Peter S’.<\/p>\n

“In the case of the Yeti, as well as Nessie, their\u00a0existence has been based on fragmentary sightings, either supposed direct sights such as photographs,\u00a0film or scraps of hair reported to be from the Yeti, or through\u00a0indirect evidence such as footprints.<\/p>\n

“Even the\u00a0rediscovery of known species that are thought to be extinct\u00a0is often based on similar \u2013\u00a0grainy photographs and\u00a0oral accounts. However,\u00a0the important difference between the discovery of new species (and cryptids such as the Yeti) and species rediscoveries, is that\u00a0our understanding of rediscovered species is based on information we gained while they were still known to be extant.<\/p>\n

“This\u00a0allows us to take new evidence, whether it is a grainy photograph or a footprint, and put it into context. With species still waiting to be discovered, this is not the case: we often lack this context and have to\u00a0stitch together fragmentary information\u00a0to form an understanding.\u00a0In the case of the\u00a0Saola (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis<\/em>), a species\u00a0so bizarre that scientists are still arguing over what its closest relatives are,\u00a0its discovery in 1992 was initially based on a single skull.<\/p>\n

“However, spectacular species are still out there and are being discovered. In 2003, the\u00a0Kipunji (Rungwecebus kipunji<\/em>) was first scientifically recorded, representing\u00a0a whole new lineage of primate for Africa. Most recently was the discovery of the\u00a0Olinguito\u00a0(Bassaricyon neblina<\/em>) in 2013, from montane forests of\u00a0Colombia and Ecuador, a relative of the\u00a0raccoons but something that looks more like the\u00a0love child of a\u00a0domestic cat and\u00a0a cuddly toy.<\/p>\n

“With any fresh evidence for a new species, or even a species that still exists, it needs to be\u00a0critically analysed, and competing hypotheses of what else it could be have to be considered. It is therefore strange the Indian Army decided that the footprints were more likely from the Yeti rather than some other explanation. It is unlikely that it was for the promotion of tourism: for certain cryptid species such as Nessies and Bigfoot,\u00a0whole industries have developed around something many believe isn\u2019t there.\u00a0Most likely it was the excitement of the moment of seeing something that appears to be slightly out of context and wanting to believe it is something special.”<\/p>\n

\"DrDr David Roberts’\u00a0main areas of research are the psychology of species identification, plant conservation, especially orchids, and illegal online wildlife trade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commenting on the recent claim by the Indian army that they found footprints of a ‘Yeti’, Dr David Roberts,\u00a0an expert in extinct species at the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40284,"featured_media":3794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[159353,6599,159375,124,6600],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3793"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3793"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3796,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3793\/revisions\/3796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}