On the trail of the orang pendek

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A topic from Science, Nature and Social Science: Science

laresMon 12/09/11 16:47

"On Friday zoologist Richard Freeman embarks on an expedition to find the elusive orang pendek. In the first of two articles, he describes the creature's possible appearance and likely evolutionary origins"

"The Indonesian island of Sumatra is the sixth largest island in the world. Sadly it has lost half its rainforest in the past 35 years, erased by the chainsaw to make way for palm oil and coffee plantations. Despite this, in the west of the island there are still vast tracts of forest standing, among them Kerinci Seblat National Park which covers 13,791 square kilometres – about the size of Montenegro.

It is from these forests that reports of a species of ape that walks upright and is unknown to science have been emerging for almost 100 years.

The orang pendek, "short man" in Malay, is said to be 4-5 feet tall but powerfully built with broad shoulders and long muscular arms. Sightings suggest it walks upright like a human, its body is covered with black or honey-coloured hair, and it may have a long mane of hair from its head down its back. It appears to live on the forest floor, unlike the arboreal Sumatran orang-utan which is confined to the north of the island."

"Native knowledge of the creature goes back into the mists of history and there are a number of local names for it. In the south-eastern lowlands it is called sedapa or sedapak. Gugu is the name in southern Sumatra while in the Rawas district it is atu rimbu. In Bengkulu it is known as sebaba. These days the creature is reported only in the west of the island, specifically in and around Kerinci Seblat National Park.

News of the creature first reached the west in the early 20th century via Dutch colonists. In 1918, the Sumatran governor, LC Westenenk, recorded an event that took place in 1910:"

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