What is orang pendek?
You can read more about orang pendek at orangpendek.org, but here it is in a nutshell: short, about a meter high (3.2 ft), short brown or grayish hair covering its body, walks completely upright on two legs, very strong upper body, face closest to a gorilla’s. No one has ever been able to get a photograph, although British researchers Jeremy Holden and Debbie Martyr have studied the elusive animal and eye-witness accounts for over a decade. They both claim to have seen the animal on multiple occasions. I have never seen orang pendek, and I am not sure whether or not it exists. It is possible that (a) it never existed, (b) existed in the past, but is now extinct, or (c) exists to this day. But my colleagues and I believe there is enough of a chance, and orang pendek would be an important enough discovery, that it is certainly worth looking for. The best chance of getting the primate on film (or in our case, compact flash card) is with camera traps. Other researchers have enjoyed enormou
