by Greg Mayer
The Telegraph and the Times have stories up about the creature below from China, which they’ve dubbed the “oriental yeti”.
The Times headline writer notes that it “looks like a bear without fur”. The story is so absurd, I first thought it an April Fools joke, but the datelines are April 5 or 6, so I guess not.
So what’s absurd? First, there’s the name. ‘Yeti’ is a name for the abominable snowman, the supposed bipedal ape or ape-man of the Himalayas. The animal in the photo obviously bears not the slightest resemblance to a man or ape. ‘Oriental’ is a curious modifier for yeti, since yetis are Oriental– they occur (or are supposed to occur) in Asia. Whoever bestowed this moniker on the creature evidently hasn’t the slightest idea what the word ‘yeti’ means, and perhaps doesn’t know what ‘oriental’ means either.
Then there’s the description of it as a ‘bear without fur’. While it is only very sparsely haired, it doesn’t look at all like a bear. The head and ear shape are all wrong, but if this is too subtle, it has a long, thick tail! (Hint: bears have very short tails; more bear info here.) The creature is said to have emerged from ‘ancient woodlands’, which sounds mysterious, but the articles note it was trapped by local hunters. Both articles betray very low standards of science journalism; really, in fact, no standards at all.
So it’s not a bear or a yeti; what is it? It’s clearly a mammal of the order Carnivora (but not of the bear family, Ursidae) suffering from some skin disease, likely mange. It doesn’t look like a member of the dog, cat or weasel families to me, but it does look like a civet, so my money is on a mangy civet. (Here’s info on a civet that occurs in China– I’m not saying it’s this particular species; more on civets in general here.) The forlorn looking critter is said to have been sent to Beijing for DNA tests. Darren Naish over at Tetrapod Zoology is good at getting to the bottom of these sorts of stories, and I hope he’ll take this one up.
By the way, this is what a mangy bear does look like.
UPDATE. At Mammoth Tales, John McKay also says it’s a civet, specifically a binturong.
Can’t argue with anything you’ve written here. A quick browse over the inter-webs and this story is repeated alomst word for word in all publications; its pretty much a copy and paste job from the “original” press release with know scientific investigation gone on.
anyway, my intitial reaction was either something of the weasel family or perhaps some large aquatic rodent (obviously with a skin problem) although im the first to admit my knowledge of the local wildlife leaves alot to be desired.
In conclusion, the poor thing is still an animal regardless of its sickly appearance and I hope these “specialists” in bejing treat it with the respect it deserves.
They should have sent it first to a dermatologist.
It also appears to be enormously pregnant or has a serious abdominal tumor/hematoma.
However, I don’t think it’s a civit. Too short a body (although the photo makes it difficult to distinguish body length).
I was thinking some sort of wolverine, but the face isn’t square enough, and the tail is way too long.
If it isn’t some sort of Photoshop prank, it would be interesting to find out what it actually is.
I’m betting “not yeti”.
I think its rear leg makes it look fat.
Are we sure that it’s not just a dog? It has a large tail, yes, but otherwise?
OK, the Telegraph story says that it cries “like a cat”, which would indicate that it’s not a dog.
chupacabras? (chinese subspecies). Joking aside, I am happy to witness the readers’ (newspapers) concern regarding this poor fellow demise; lets think of a happy ending-for him.
her?
Its obviously a Fossa with mange, poor thing, it needs a comfy blanket under its feet for one! and urgent vetinary care it must be itching like mad with that sore looking skin! Do they have to ship it? could they not have just tagged it to lead them back to its Fossa family, they may still have fur and these stupid people will actually see what species it is!
Fossas have much more catlike faces, but more saliently are endemic to Madagascar (i.e. found there and nowhere else), so it’s highly unlikely to be a fossa. If it is, it certainly wouldn’t have a Chinese family to go back to.
GCM
Looking at pictures of Fossa’s, it really looks like one without hair.
Whatever the poor animal it is, I’m sure it will recieved ethical treatment. The Chinese have no respect for human rights, so why would you think they would respect animals? It’s probably all ready dead and disposed of to cover up whatever hoax they were trying to put on the rest of the world.
Fossas have MUCH longer tails (and they don’t live in China – but maybe it *escaped*. That’s a taster for next Saturday!):
http://z-letter.com/2010/01/22/name-that-animal-8/
Not a binturong given it’s range. It’s more likely a palm civet (Paguma rather than Paradoxurus).
My money is on Paguma, the masked palm civet, a known carrier of notoedric mange. There are a few other civet species that could fit the bill, Binturong doesn’t seem quite right and would not be expected in Sichuan, but who knows.
Incidentally, messing around with sick Chinese civets, not the best idea.
That article annoys the hell out of me with all the talk about “civet cats”. That’s like “panda bears”. Where the hell did they learn about animals – out of the goddamned bible at Sunday school or something?
But Pandas are bears. Now if you’d said Koala bears, then you’d have a point.
Not just any yeti, but an oriental yeti, eh? P’shaw, that’s nothing. You should see my Scottish Loch Ness monster. It’s way cooler than those non-Scottish nessies. (Indeed, you might even so those other ones are No True Loch Ness Monster)
Thats not a yeti.
These are yetis.
Aside from the mystery creature, does anyone else find the bare bear, well, unbearable
Yeah, poor bear. god must really hate the poor beast.
The only thing that would throw me off about it being a civet is the muzzle. Civets have a downward slop from the bridge between the eyes to the base of the muzzle which narrows from there. This creature has a slight mound from the bridge which leads straight into a muzzle which does resemble more of a fossa but it would have to have an eye condition as well since the eye coloring and clarity doesn’t resemble anything of a fossa and as specified it isn’t native to the region.
Is it the civet that makes the most expensive coffee in the world?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak
Yeah, but the coffee tastes like poop.
One more point for Binturong- that tail looks pretty muscular, and Binturongs have prehensile tails.
Funnily enough it looks really like a creature found in Texas that they were claiming was the chupacabra.
Preliminary tests seemed to show it was a canid, possibly a coyote/dog hybrid with a mutation that left it hairless.
Whatever it is, it looks a sorry wee beastie caged up like that.
Some years ago a family of mysterious hairless small animals was found in Eastern Kentucky – newspapers ran pictures of them, speculation about a new species, etc. It turned out that they were raccoons who had made a home in the Maxey Flats nuclear waste site (shut down long ago).
i just hope they dont kill it to get information on it thepoor guy/girl is probley scared and wants t go home
ps its nose is cute
ive seen this befor. its an albino civet cat with a skin disease. tests where done and if u google an image of this animal they look the same, just this one has no hair. in the article i read they said they did the tests and let it go. so it probably died shortly after
No matter what this creature is, yeti or not, it looks very sad in the cage. How would you like to be caged?! What a sad life… Don’t cage the poor animals… What a misuse of ability!
The Poor living thing, it looks like it is miserable..what terrible looking conditions! I would be screaming out too if I were confined to a small box like that! horrible, I hope they figure out what it is soon and then get it into a zoo or some larger space to live, just abhorrent how humans treat living things. :((((