The "little lady of Flores" files: Something I want to write down before I forget:

The other day I was at my local grocery store and I noticed what appeared to be a girl child shopping.

But I quickly realized - watching from behind - that it could not be a child.

Movements too precise, too disciplined. Honed by decades of experience, not mere years.

Well, she turned around and - it was a woman only slightly younger than me.

An almost proportionate dwarf. She came up only to the bottom of my rib cage - and I am only 5 ft tall.

Thus she was less than a metre tall, for sure.

Of course I immediately ceased to look at her - continuing to look would have been rude.

Her head struck me as slightly too large for an adult, in proportion to her body, which is why I describe her as a "nearly proportionate" dwarf.

Then, a few days later, I saw another nearly proportionate dwarf - a different woman - in another part of town - about the same size.

So I am even more skeptical than I used to be of claims that Flores man represents a "different species" of human.

I always was skeptical of the claims that the little lady of Flores was a different human species from us, but am especially so when I run into normal humans who just happen to be very small. It's not a crime here in Canada.

I think it more likely that - just as the elephants on Flores were unusually small, so were the people. While it would be interesting to know the reason for that, we need not assume that the people were a different species.