ISLAND of the SMALL

The people of Flores Island tell a strange tale. The very oldest among them remember hearing about odd little people who came down from the caves near one of the island's volcanoes. The little people stood only about three feet tall and made gentle murmuring sounds. If they accepted a meal, they'd eat it bowl and all (the bowl was made of pumpkin). Or perhaps they'd run off with some crops. For their appetites, they earned the name Ebu Gogo, or "grandmother who eats anything."

You have probably heard other stories about tiny humanlike creatures, such as leprechauns, elves, and even hobbits. Are they real? No. But what about the Ebu Gogo? Until recently, most everyone dismissed them as local legend, too. But now, people aren't so sure.

The Island Rule

Flores Island is just one of over 17,000 islands that make up the country of Indonesia, which is located in the Indian Ocean between Australia and (Southeast Asia. The island is known for its volcanoes, its miniature prehistoric elephants (now extinct), its 10 foot lizards and its giant rats. Flores is a topsy-turvy world where large and small are sometimes reversed.

How can living on an island affect an animal's size? Scientists who study island animals have discovered that species that are smaller than rabbits tend to grow bigger on islands and those that are larger tend to shrink. They call this the "island rule." These changes take place over thousands of years as animals adapt to survive in an island environment. Remember, islands are isolated places with limited food, land, and resources. It is not easy to reach an island, nor is it easy to leave. If they are to survive, successful island animals must be well suited to stay. So, like Goldilocks, they must find just the right size.

Normal-sized rats probably arrived on Flores thousands of years ago by floating on debris. Over time, the rats began to grow larger, enabling them to hunt and eat both small and large animals, which gave them a wider range of food to choose from. Becoming larger also allows an animal to store more fat and water to survive hungry times.

But there is such a thing as being too large. Normal-sized elephants are good swimmers and float easily. They reached Flores Island in prehistoric times, then slimmed down to pony-size, about four feet tall, maybe even shorter than you! While full-sized elephants would need more food and room than a small island could provide, these dwarf elephants adapted quite nicely to island living.

Enter, Ebu Gogo

Could the same shrinking have happened to ancient humans? In September 2003, archaeologists made an extraordinary find in a cave called Liang Bua. About 15 feet under a layer of volcanic ash they discovered one skull and part of a humanlike skeleton. The teeth were worn like an adult's, and other growth marks on the bones indicated the skeleton belonged to a 30-year-old female.

The skull, however, was tiny, and so were the bones. This ancient woman would have stood only three feet tall, about the size of a modern three-year-old! The stunned scientists believed her to belong to a brand-new human species, which they named Homo floresiensis. (This brings to about 15 the number of ancient human species scientists have so far discovered.) For fun, they called her "Hobbit," though some thought that "Ebu" might fit better.

Small and Smart

Who was this half-pint human? Could she be the first example ever of a human species to follow the island rule and grow small in order to survive? Yes, say some scientists who have examined her. She and her kind may be the dwarfed descendants of full-sized prehistoric humans who arrived on the island 800,000 years ago. Archaeologists also found stone tools and burned animal bones and spearheads at Liang Bua. This evidence indicates that Homo floresiensis, though small, were more advanced than their ancestors. They made sophisticated tools, used fire, and probably hunted in groups.

Here's the catch. Scientists have long thought that as humans evolved, they got smarter as their brains grew larger. But the chimp-sized Homo floresiensis skull held a brain that didn't seem to fit the pattern. How could little people with such tiny brains have made tools and hunted? By studying the inside of the skull, researchers determined that despite its size, the shape and texture of the tiny brain may indicate an advanced ability to think and plan. After all, if you were three feet tall and lived on an island with 10-foot reptiles, wouldn't you like to be able to think and plan? Though it is an extraordinary possibility, it seems that the brains of Homo floresiensis evolved to be smart without being large.

Face to Face?

Scientists have dated the Floresian woman's bones to about 18,000 years ago. This makes Homo floresiensis the most recent humans of a different species to share the earth with us. They must have lived nearly side by side with modern humans, who probably arrived in the region about 40,000 years ago. Today, while human beings come in all sizes, shapes, and colors, we all belong to one species, called Homo sapiens. There are many species of cats, from house cats to lions, and about 900,000 insect species, but there is only one species of human. What would it have been like to share an island with another kind of intelligent human being?

Not everyone agrees that the skeleton represents a new species. Some researchers think that the owner of the small skeleton may just have been a modern human with a disease or birth defect that stunted her growth and the development of her brain. However, the skull has been studied closely and shows little evidence of such problems. Others disagree that these little people developed according to the island rule. They think that Homo floresiensis may always have been small and arrived on the island that way.

Many more clues need to be unearthed to shed light on the little people of Flores. Anthropologists have found and are now studying the bones of several other small individuals, along with part of a jaw and even some hair, hoping to solve the mysteries of these people. Why were they so small? How smart were they? Did they have a language? Did they share their island with modern humans? Stay tuned. The story of the Ebu Gogo is far from over.