Can anybody tell me about the sasquatch genome project? How about homo sapiens cognatus as verified and listed in zoobank?

I am reading a book, (I stopped reading it for a while but will get back to it) by Bryan Sykes a very famous geneticist that first recreated the Neanderthal genome. He has been very interested in getting hairs and any DNA from "yeti" and Sasquatch. So far, he hasn't found much.

Sykes has an interest in Yeti and Bigfoot so he isn't as unbiased as sometimes portrayed. That said, his opinions are near my own. He thinks the evidence is interesting and sometimes compelling that there really is something behind all the reports. There was a hair that he found in Bhutan that came back with unknown primate but I haven't heard much follow up from that seemingly shocking report.

A few years ago, a geneticist, Dr. Melba Ketchum, studied a lot of samples. It seems she butchered the study pretty badly and there was a lot of cross contamination and sketchy science. They concluded early on that their analyses indicated Bigfoot all had mitochondrial DNA from a human female meaning a much more "bestial" animal crossed with a human and their hybrid offspring survived as what are reported as Bigfoot.

Until they obtain reasonable evidence, they won't have to worry about legal ramifications. We have species that are close to us, such as chimps, and they aren't really treated much better than coyotes. Maybe if there is a Sasquatch or Yeti, it is closer to human than chimp but we have a long way to go to proving they exist first. I think if they were proved to exist, most people would want them protected but on the other hand, we might have a wave of idiots hunting them.

You talking about this?

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/07/bigfoot-sam...

"Seven of the samples didn’t yield enough DNA for identification. Of the 30 that were sequenced, all matched the exact 12S RNA sequences for known species, the team reports online today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Ten hairs belonged to various bear species; four were from horses; four were from wolves or dogs; one was a perfect match to a human hair; and the others came from cows, raccoons, deer, and even a porcupine. Two samples, from India and Bhutan, matched polar bear 12S RNA—a surprising finding that Sykes is following up on to determine whether some Himalayan bears are hybrid species with polar bears."

The project is going nowhere. The peer review says it all: "This is clearly important information that I hope the public will have access to soon. However, I was immediately taken by surprise after thoroughly reading the manuscript to see such a high reference to Hominins, including the title. I was surprised because there is no substantial evidence presented by the author that the species identified in the 3 whole genomes is a biped. Eye witness accounts are the only data presented to determine or substantiate a biped of any kind. It would be much more appropriate to delineate in this manuscript that novel genomic evidence highly suggests an unknown species living contemporaneously in the Continental and Subarctic United States and Canada within the Order: Primate. There is no conclusive evidence that the unusual data found in the follicular hair morphology or the tremendous genome results

indicates a "hominin". The tribe Hominini (of Homininae) is reserved for Homo, post Panini

divergence. Genetic information alone is not enough to classify the species within a tribe or clad

under order - Primate. Though there is substantial alignment in some data relating to hair and

other DNA studies, it is too presumptuous to purport the extant data included in the manuscript

conclusively classifies this unknown species as hominin.