Expert: Mysterious human species “hobbit” may not have disappeared

Homo floresiensis, called “hobbit”, is thought to have lived on Flores Island, which is now the fifth of Indonesia, between 60,000 and 700,000 years ago.

An anthropologist has surprisingly stated that <x0bbit” may be alive today.

Gregory Forth told Live Science: We just don't know when this species disappeared or, I dare say, we don't know if it's gone. So there is a possibility that is still alive.

But other experts are sceptical about the seemingly wild claim.

“Flores is an island that has almost the same area of Connecticut and there are two million people living on it today,” said John Hawks, a paleolanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison for Live Science.

The population is scattered throughout the island, he added.

And actually, the idea that there's a huge primma that's impervious to this island and that survives in such a population very close to zero,” said Hawks.

Forth, who has done anthropological work on the island since 1984, disagrees. Over the years, he has heard of a number of local images of small, humanoid creatures living in the forest and wrote about them until 2003, when homo floresiens and Fortch first was discovered.

Since his search began, Forth has collected 30 eyewitness accounts that have seen similar creatures consistent with the description of <x0bob. ”