Creatures, Myths & Legends

Was Russian 'apewoman' a genuine Yeti ?

By T.K. Randall
April 4, 2015

Image: AI-generated (Midjourney) Captured in the Caucasus mountains in 1850, Zana was reported to possess characteristics more like that of a wild beast than a human. Her strength and athletic prowess was second to none and reports from the time alleged that she was able to outrun a horse and swim across even the most violent of rivers.

The story of Zana has always been associated with the legendary Alma of Central Asia, a cryptozoological human/Bigfoot cross that has often been to compared to a prehistoric human.

Recent DNA testing however has yielded some intriguing new clues in to the mystery by revealing that while Zana's DNA was 100% African, it was quite unlike that of any modern day African group.Professor Bryan Sykes, the scientist who previously indicated that hair samples retrieved in the Hamalayas were those of an extinct species of polar bear, believes that Zana's DNA might suggest that she belonged to a subspecies of humans who left Africa for the Caucasus 100,000 years ago.

He also believes that the Alma is the most plausible of all the world's hominid legends.

"Bigfoot has many more people trying to find it," he said. "But I suppose either the yeti or the alma/almasty, which live in inaccessible and very thinly populated regions, is the most likely."

Zana herself, having been purchased by a nobleman to work as his servant, reportedly died in 1890.

Source: IB Times

Tags: Zana, Yeti