New "dwarf hominid" remains discovered in Indonesia

[Auburngirl05]

It could make a fascinating doctoral study. Of course the downside is that you would have to visit places like the Bahamas, the Seychelles, the Maldives and Fiji for your field work.[img']http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/images/icons/icon7.gif[/img]

 

It would also be interesting to see a studies on populations in impoverished African countries where severe malnutrition is the norm, please correct me if I'm wrong because I don't know it for a fact but I think they still tend to be average height or even taller...

Another interesting study would be the average height differences in groups with the same food intake in terms of caloric value but from foods of different sources (like Eskimo meat-based diets versus a vegetarian diet, and the results of adaptations to each). Discover magazine did a recent article on Eskimo diets that was pretty interesting.

[Aardvark]

Fossil remains show that early hunter gathers were taller than later more 'advanced' pastoralists.

 

As agriculture is supposed to be an advance it is curious that it coincided with poorer quality human devolpment and growth.

[Mokele]

Alligators in the florida swamps have been the same for millenia im sure you will agree that they are living in a marginal,isolated environment.

 

You have got to be ****ing me.

 

Have you ever lived in the South? marginalized? They're *EVERYWHERE*. Every freakin drainage canal, pond, stream or retention pond has one in it. In the mating season, when the smaller ones are forced out by the big ones establishing territories, hundreds wind up in people's pools. And they're *still* at an estimated 1/10th of their population before hunting.

 

There's a lake where my folks live (FL) with over 250 gators per square mile, and it's a *big* lake.

 

These things are probably one of the most successful predators in the entire US. They are hardly "marginalized".

 

 

 

Can the dwarfing principle be applied to ectothermic animals with that have indeterminate growth (ones that never stop growing, such as many types of reptiles: gators, turtles, anacondas, etc)? I'm not being rhetorical, honest question.

 

Definitely not. In fact, unless there's something restricting their size, some other ecological or environmental pressure, reptile species tend to get larger as a default.

 

It's a cost-detriment balance that favors large size. Increasing in size has a huge effect on mammal nutrition, because we burn food to heat ourselves. Without that, reptiles can increase in size massively with little drawbacks (again, unless some other selective pressure is keeping them small). There's a huge benefit to size for them, as well: eggs. The bigger the reptile, the more eggs (or live young) they can have. A ball python (3 feet) lays about a dozen eggs. A Burmese python (same genus, 15 foot females) lays between 70-110 eggs. The reproductive payoffs are immense. So any reptile that increases it's size above it's conspecifics can lay more and bigger eggs, creating an obvious selective pressure.

 

Commensurate with this, most reptiles do not ever stop growing. They slow down when they reach adulthood, but they always keep growing, since being bigger means more eggs (or better ability to compete for mates in males). In most small species, the changes after maturity are too small to see, but in large, long-lived species... Well, the general rule is x1.5 and x2; very old individuals are generally half again as large as they were upon sexual maturity, and a few rare individuals will combine good environment, luck, good genetic growth potential and age to reach double the sexual maturity size.

 

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The basic gist is that reptiles not only aren't a good model for what happens to mammals on islands, they're they worst possible model.

 

Mokele

[SubJunk]

to expand, LucidDreamer, Flores had brains the sizes of grapefruits

severian, yes they're very different from modern humans. They appear to be most similar to Homo Erectus, who died about 250,000 years ago. Flores Man is thought to have stemmed from Erectus roughly 800,000 years ago.

It's strange you'd dispute a well observed biological phenomena, spaceman. It's called The Island Rule. Google it.

Here's the first result you'll get:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/eden/giants.html

Here's a quote you'll get:

"Rodents tend toward gigantism, while carnivores, lagomorphs (rabbits and hares), and artiodactyls (deer, hippos, and other even-toed ungulates) are more likely to become dwarfed. Overall, amongst mammal species that colonize islands, big ones have a tendency to shrink while small ones are apt to bulk up. Biologists have come to call Foster's generalization the "island rule." "

[Auburngirl05]

Just an update on the discussion going on among scientists about the finds...these statements really surprised me and I'd expect them to cause some controversy/argument among professionals...

http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=20041106.A05

[Ophiolite]

Very interesting.

 

The article notes that: 'paleoanthropology professor from Gadjah Mada University, Teuku Jacob.... said that ....if they (the Australian scientists) say the skeleton was the ancestor of the Indonesian people, forget it.'

SInce the Australian's made no such claim one wonders if the professor has actually read the Nature paper.

 

Later the article notes, 'Soejono, the head of the National Archeology (sic) Institute, who said the Australians should have involved them when making the announcement considering that none of the Australian scientists were present at the time of the discovery.'

Given that five of the seven authors of the Nature paper work at the National Archaeology Institute one, again, wonders.

 

Looks like wounded national pride. One suspects that Flores man is about to take a back seat to Homo iratus academius.

 

Thanks for keeping us to date on this AuburnGirl.

[Auburngirl05]

Looks like wounded national pride. One suspects that Flores man is about to take a back seat to Homo iratus academius.

 

 

I think you're right, that's probably the main factor, all of the criticism of the Australian researchers seems to be mostly bitterness about being "beaten" to the story.

Also, there could be some paranoia over racial issues for the Indonesians, such as concern over the finds implying that people in that region descended from an inferior lineage, which is nonsense, in my opinion, but a lot of people have read close to nothing about evolution and are easily led to dangerous conclusions like that...

[LucidDreamer]

Yes, the comment about Flores man being an ancestor to the Indonesian people was quite odd

[Ophiolite]

Driving home from work I heard a BBC news item to the effect that Professor Jacob (See post 81 above) has impounded some of the recovered specimens. Reportedly, he has stated that he will undertake an 'independent' study of the remains; that other researchers will not have access to the material; that the primary specimen is that of a homo sapiens with a genetic defect responsible for the small cranial capacity; that the specimen is no more than 2000 years old.

[jaime]

Hy, this is exciting, and not too much of a surprise, the Earth had plenty of space for more than one species of human to evolve, better said, more than one hominid, we are humans, Homo Sapiens, but there where others, Neanderthal man, and the Homo Erectus survived and coexisted in the same planet at the same time for a while.

Unfortunately, specially in times of brute force, not much technology(although there was technology, not what it is in modern times, where a 5'4" human can kill a 7" 300lbs pounder with a small gun) did not help some hominids against others,remember, the Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis/Homo Sapiens Sapiens/Homo Erectus triangle is probably not been the only one, in the past, Gigantothepecus, and others also blended in their times,so, in the last of the major competitions, us, Homo Sapiens Sapiens , are the boldest, in terms of aggresiveness, , perhaps not even in aggresiveness(neanderthals have a stronger body, superior metabolism and efficiency, bigger brains than us, probably a higher level of testosterone in their body systems, so, I am inclined to think nNeanderthals were probably more aggresive, Homo Sapiens Sapiens was probably more social due to the need to confront these stronger Neanderthals)...but in a group attitude that was forced upon them when confronted with the stronger Neanderthal. I also think that we are the worst of the 3 hominids that existed at the time(without even talking about flores), because, as in people in jail, as in people in war, the meanest and dirtiest scum bags survive, the nice guys can not make it. Neanderthals in my view, where stronger and better prepared for combat than us, even more inteligent, but were , in my view, a gentle giant, only getting brute when forced, cornered,so, I can envision Neanderthals walking by the forest, when a tribe of Homo Sapiens jumped on them, out numbering them and surprising them. In the same way a nice family moving into a ghetto will have a rough time, Homo Sapiens brought in the ghetto mentality, the bad feelings, and Neanderthals did not know how to react to that, stressing them and falling victim to systematic Homo Sapiens Sapiens anihilation.

We are still doing so, we are the dead end of the hominid evolution, the worts one got to win, and now that he has no enemies to destroy, Homo Sapiens Sapiens is looking upon himself to fight and destroy, Homo Sapiens Sapiens will destroy himself in the process.

[SubJunk]

this thread is about floresiensis, not neanderthals

[premjan]

The article notes that: 'paleoanthropology professor from Gadjah Mada University' date=' Teuku Jacob.... [i']said that ....[/i]if they (the Australian scientists) say the skeleton was the ancestor of the Indonesian people, forget it.'

SInce the Australian's made no such claim one wonders if the professor has actually read the Nature paper.

This comment was probably a joke.

[Aardvark]

This comment was probably a joke.

 

From the way he is behaving, i don't think so.

 

More like gross unprofessionalism.