Homo floresiensis

Homo floresiensis Temporal range: Late Pleistocene
A cast of a Homo floresiensis skull, American Museum of Natural History
Scientific classification (disputed)
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Primates
Family:	Hominidae
Tribe:	Hominini
Genus:	Homo
Species:	H. floresiensis
Binomial name
†Homo floresiensis Brown et al 2004

Homo floresiensis ("Flores Man", also called "hobbit") is a probable species in the genus Homo, to which humans belong.

The remains were found in 2004 on the island of Flores in Indonesia. Parts of the skeletons of nine individuals were found, including one complete cranium (the head).^[1][2] The most important and obvious identifying features of H. floresiensis are its small body, and small size of the space for the brain inside the skull. This is why the discoverers have called members of the species "hobbits", after J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional race of roughly the same height.

1. ↑ Brown P. et al 2004. A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Nature 431 (7012): 1055–1061. [1]
2. ↑ Morwood M.J. et al 2005. Further evidence for small-bodied hominins from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Nature 437 (7061): 1012–1017. [2]