I thought FT would know better.

[lordmongrove]

The yeti is not and never has been white.

I'll believe that when they actually find a body and do a proper scientific census of their numbers.

And really, who's to say they can't be white? Mammoths after all came in colours from blonde to red to black. Why shouldn't yetis have different shades? Or perhaps like white lions there's a recessive gene that makes some rarer members of the species pale. Or perhaps like ermine they change colour with the seasons.

Until a carcass gets found and proper DNA sequencing happens from that carcass, or the entire population gets found and tagged, no-one can say for definate what colours they can and can't be. After all, the only colours of yeti we know about are the ones we've seen. It could easily be a represensative bias. Maybe the white ones make up the majority, it's just the brown ones that are stomping about and getting spotted more.

There has never been a single white yeti reported in the annals of Asia research. Maybe, one in a blue moon an albino occurs but thats like saying gorillas are white because Barcelona Zoo once had an albino gorilla.

 

[Urvogel]

There has never been a single white yeti reported in the annals of Asia research. Maybe, one in a blue moon an albino occurs but thats like saying gorillas are white because Barcelona Zoo once had an albino gorilla.

Except...with your example we know full well gorillas aren't white. Because we've seen them in their natural habitat, mapped our their populations, kept them in zoos, done DNA sequencing and studied them intensively. So we can say for certain that gorillas are not naturally white, and the one that is is a freak occurrence. You can't say that for the yeti.

If the white gorilla in the zoo was the only gorilla the world had seen it would be presumptuous to say that therefore all gorillas are white, because we know nothing about the rest of the species and are instead basing that presumption on an eyewitness account. Which is exactly what you're doing. We have no idea of a yeti's natural history and our only knowledge as to its colour comes from some eyewitness who have only seen a few individuals. How do we know yetis can't be white? We don't. Until there's actual concrete proof of their existence you cannot say for 100% certain what their colour is.

 

[lordmongrove]

There have been yeti sightings streaching back hundreds of years into historic accounts and not one of them has been white. None of the ancient illustrations in boks or on temple walls show white yetis. If the yeti had a white colour phase we would know it by now. This isn't coming from one or two sightings but from many.

We know the yeti does not live in the eternal snows because their is not enough food up there for a big animal. The only place with enough food to support a population of these creatures would be the forested areas.

The white yeti is a media myth stemming from a mistranlation and later bolstered by stupid cartoons.