Hobitses are REAL! ~ Also known as the Return of the Robyn

(I am, in fact, not dead. Just so you all knew. Wow, I say you all as though someone reads these!)

Today, we've discovered the skeletons of Hobbits from the BBC news people, and from the good old folks at Yahoo.com. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3948165.stm and http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=716&e=6&u=/ap/20041027/ap_on_sc/dwarf_cavewoman, respectively.)

Scientists have found a skeleton of a woman only a meter tall, and has been placed into a new species category, seemingly nicknamed "Hobbits." (The National Geographic picture doesn't look anything like our Lord of the Rings friends, of course...)

The skeleton, found in Indonesia, may yet give some more significance to the stories of leprechans and other sorts of little people, the BBC's article says. The article is all enthusiasm for this new and exciting find. Homo floresiensis, as the skeleton, along with 6 others, has been named, is a new chapter in the evolutionary progression of humans, the article announces.

Meanwhile, the Yahoo article presents the enthusiastic veiw, plue the veiw of others who aren't quite so convinced that this new skeleton is a new addition to the "Homo" line at all. They speculate that the new species is simply a squashed version of Homo erectus and not a new link at all.

Information reported about the species as a new one is the same. Scientists specualate that this new species (if that is indeed what it is) may have spent a considerable amount of it's time in trees, staying away from creatures like the Komodo dragon.

By far the most interesting was that the people of Indonesia have old stories about a race of little people, about a meter tall, who often murmured to each other, or mimiced the locals. The subject is interesting not only to those studying the evolutionary chain, but to anyone searching for origins of poplular folk tales. New species or not, these skeletons are a great find.

Why Yahoo chose to present skeptics and BBC chose to leave them out is hard to say. It may only have differences in that Yahoo's article is slightly newer (at least as far as my rather lame time zone conversion abilities can tell). As a bonus, BBC also includes links to other stories covering the event and a video.

Such good bloggers, those BBCers.