The mystery of a yeti finger taken from Nepal half a century ago has been solved with the help of scientists at Edinburgh Zoo, the BBC has reported.
The mummified remains have been held in the Royal College of Surgeons museum in London since the 1950s.
A DNA sample analyzed by the zoo's genetic expert Dr. Rob Ogden has finally revealed the finger's true origins.
Following DNA tests it has found to be human bone.
The yeti, also known as the Abominable Snowman, is a legendary giant ape-like creature said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal and Tibet.
Despite the lack of evidence of its existence, the yeti myth retains a strong appeal in both Nepal and the West, where it became popular in the 19th century.
The finger, which was said to be from a yeti, was taken from a Nepalese monastery by an American explorer in the 1950s.
He replaced it with a human finger he had been given by a British scientist.
It was then smuggled out of India with the help of Hollywood actor James Stewart, who hid the artefact in his wife's lingerie case.
The finger is now held in the Royal College of Surgeons museum in London.
Just recently it was rediscovered during cataloguing.
They allowed a BBC documentary team to take a DNA sample.
It has been analyzed by genetic experts at Edinburgh Zoo, who concluded it is human.
Dr Rob Ogden, of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, said: "We had to stitch it together. We had several fragments that we put into one big sequence and then we matched that against the database and we found human DNA.