Remember the Japanese Yeti hunting team we mentioned back in August? They’re now claiming to have discovered a Yeti footprint in the Himalayan snow (see left side of photo below):

“The footprints were about 20 centimetres (eight inches) long and looked like a human’s,” Yoshiteru Takahashi, the leader of the Yeti Project Japan, told AFP in Kathmandu.

Mr Takahashi was speaking after he returned with his seven-member team from their third attempt to track down the half-man-half-ape, tales of which have gripped the imaginations of Western adventurers and mountaineers for decades.

Despite spending 42 days on Dhaulagiri IV – a 7,661-metre (25,135-foot) peak where they say they have seen traces of yetis in the past – the team failed in their prime objective of capturing one on film.

But Mr Takahashi said the footprints were proof enough.

“Myself and other team members have been coming to the Himalayas for years and we can recognise bear, deer, wolf and snow leopard prints and it was none of those,” he said.

“We remain convinced it is real. The footprints and the stories the local tell make us sure that it is not imaginary,” he added.

Yet another failed Yeti hunting trip, and disappointment for monster fans across the globe (and for the official sponsors of the Yeti hunt, which include Suntory and Kowa).