Chinese Yeti Just a Civet With Mange?

It seems that the mysterious yeti found in Sichuan, China, may be just a civet with a bad case of mange. Loren Coleman, an author of many books on mythical creatures, hypothesizes that the "yeti" is either a common civet or a Himalayan palm civet infected with parasitic mites that have caused it to lose its fur. Calling it a yeti is "media madness," Coleman complains to the Christian Science Monitor.

“If the Asian press starts using the word ‘yeti’ for every unidentified animal it’s going to muddy the waters of cryptozoology,” says Coleman, who runs the International Cryptozoology Museum in Maine, which features 150 foot casts credited to Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and the yeti. “Even though we haven’t found the yeti, we have a body of literature on the yeti going back 3,000 years.” (More yeti stories.)