The Hobbits Among Us

My friend Jon "Hoppy" Hopwood sent along an interesting story from today's New York Times: A Tiny Hominid With No Place on the Family Tree. The story regards the anthropology mystery of a tiny fossil found in Indonesia back in 2003 that was the subject of a recent symposium at Stony Brook University:

Six years after their discovery, the extinct little people nicknamed hobbits who once occupied the Indonesian island of Flores remain mystifying anomalies in human evolution, out of place in time and geography, their ancestry unknown. Recent research has only widened their challenge to conventional thinking about the origins, transformations and migrations of the early human family....

For those who know Hoppy, his interest in the subject is entirely understandable:

Hobbit: Short and rotund.
Hoppy: Short and rotund.

Hobbit: Renowned love of beer.
Hoppy: Renowned love of beer.

Hobbit: Fond of Buckland poetry.
Hoppy: Fond of Bukowski poetry.

Hobbit: Lives in luxurious hole in ground.
Hoppy: Lives in luxurious '87 Caddy with holes in side.

Hobbit: Surprisingly stalwart in a tight corner.
Hoppy: Surprisingly tight in a corner store.

Hobbit: Hairy feet.
Hoppy: Hairy toes.

Do hobbits live among us even now? I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I do expect to hear from a certain committee from Stockholm, Sweden, shortly after I put Hoppy in a bag and drag him down to Stony Brook for a closer examination.