It turns out those mysterious, pint-sized human relatives we nicknamed hobbits weren’t the master hunters we once thought they were. CNN has now reported that new research suggests that Homo floresiensis, the diminutive hominin discovered in the Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores, were likely scavengers rather than the skilled big-game hunters that early theories described.
Dr. Elizabeth Grace Veatch, a paleoanthropologist, reportedly set out to re-examine the survival strategies of Homo floresiensis between 190,000 and 50,000 years ago. She wanted to see if the evidence truly supported the portrayal of these hominins as active hunters. So, the research team went to an unexpected place: Zoo Atlanta. They observed Rinca, a Komodo dragon, feeding on a goat carcass to see how the giant lizards left teeth marks on bones.
