Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Congratulations Homo floresiensis

The discovery in 2004 of remains of a human-like creature on the Indonesian Island of Flores sparked a debate. The remains looked like humans, only much smaller. Once set of scientists decided to call them Homo floresiensis, a new human specie, that persisted in that area until very recently, possibly as late as 13,000 years ago. Another set of scientists claimed that it was too early to tell if the bones represented a new specie of human (the three most recent, and most likely all living together on Earth at one time being H. erectus, H. neanderthalensis, and H. sapien), and that the difference in size is not more extreme than that found between a great dane and a chihuahua.


It seems that after five years of research, H. floresiensis has been granted inclusion to the family tree, and is not a specimen of human with microcephaly, a condition which can result, among other things, with a much smaller than normal skull.


This may explain the hundreds of years of reported sightings of Orang Pendek, a yeti-like creature of extremely small size "found" in the Indonesian jungles. Sightings have come from the farmers, the Dutch, Americans, and other tourist and military personnel for years. Maybe a descendant of floresiensis has survived...


A little more about Orang Pendek here. More about floresiensis here. (Good luck with that last one.)

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