The almas

The almas is a hairy, human-like being described by people in the Gobi. A genetic study that lists the almasty of central Asia among reported unknown primates says no body of such a creature has ever been authenticated.

The earliest source here is N. M. Przhevalsky, in a book published in English in 1876. He wrote that Mongols had told him of a man-beast in Kan-su. It was said to have a flat, human face, to walk upright often, and to have thick black fur and huge claws. Hunters feared it, and people moved house to keep away from where it went. English Wikipedia cites Dr. Rinchen as saying elderly Gobi people have seen almas tracks but that sightings are growing rarer, and describes the almas as stooped, with hands longer than a human's, and covered in sparse dark hair.

The sources use two names, almas and almasty, and treat them separately. A 2014 genetic study by Sykes and colleagues listed the almasty of central Asia with the yeti and bigfoot. It said eyewitness reports and footprints point to such creatures, but no body or recent fossil of one has ever been confirmed.

A 2021 study by Margaryan and colleagues analysed the genome of Zana of Abkhazia, a real woman. It found her close ancestry most likely lay with populations now living in East Africa. The authors suggested she may have had a genetic condition such as congenital generalised hypertrichosis, which could partly account for the long body hair and lack of speech recorded about her, and concluded that the prejudices of her time turned her into a supposed hidden hominid, an idea some people still hold.

Vice reports that Porshnev went in 1958 to check the reports himself, taking folklorists, geologists and anthropologists. Vice says many of his colleagues had little interest in yetis, and the expedition's leader, the botanist Cyril Staniukovich, cared more about plants. The article's headline says bigfoot believers have since found a lost manuscript about the "Soviet Sasquatch".