Scott Solomon

of these very short-statured, small-bodied hominids.

The structure of their bones shows us that they were different from any other species that we know about anywhere else in the world that's ever been found.

They've only ever been found from this one island.

So based on that, we assume they were restricted to the island.

somebody could later find them somewhere else and that would change the story.

But for now, you're absolutely right that our understanding is they only lived on this island.

And because they're such a short bodied hominids in a,

You know, it's very different from pretty much any other species.

I'll tell you the actual twist to that in just a moment.

But yeah, we think what may have happened is that their ancestors made it there somehow.

They were stranded on this island and basically they evolved to be shorter.

And as you pointed out, they're not the only species that evolved to be smaller.

We actually know that this is a common phenomenon that happens to species that are isolated on islands, is that they change size.

So there's all over the world, there's all of these examples of these miniature species that live on islands.

And elephants are actually a good example.

They're small-bodied fossil animals.

you know, mammoths and other elephant relatives on islands like in the Mediterranean and elsewhere in Asia.

So that definitely is something that happens on islands, but there's more to it, which is actually fascinating because on that same island of Flores, not only were there other small bodied species, but there were actually giants too.

So, you know, the Komodo dragon from Australia, this is, sorry, not from Australia, from Komodo is actually near the island of Flores.

So there were species that were closely related to Komodo dragons, but were enormous.