The mystery surrounding a finger of Yeti, the fabled snowman, which was taken from Nepal five decades ago, has been 'solved'.

A DNA sample - a set of numbers that helps reveal somebody's true origins was taken and analysed by Edinburgh Zoo's genetic expert Dr Rob Ogden, the BBC said. The DNA tests found it 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.

The finger, which was said to be from a Yeti, was taken from a Nepalese monastery by an American explorer in the 1950s. The finger is now held in the Royal College of Surgeons museum in London.

The BBC quoted Dr Rob Ogden of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, as saying, "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.

"So it wasn't too surprising but it was obviously slightly disappointing that you hadn't discovered something brand new," he said, adding, "Human was what we were expecting and human is what got." nepalnews.com