While Orang Pendek or similar animals have historically been reported throughout Sumatra and Southeast Asia, recent sightings have occurred largely within the Kerinci regency of central Sumatra and especially within the borders of Taman Nasional Kerinci Seblat (Kerinci Seblat National Park). The park, 2° south of the equator, is located within the Bukit Barisan mountain range and features some of the most remote primary rainforest in the world. The park provides one of the last homes for the endangered Sumatran Tiger.
The Suku Anak Dalam (roughly, “Children of the Inner-forest”), also known as Orang Kubu or Orang Rimba, are a group of people who have traditionally lived in the forests of Kerinci and surrounding areas. Orang Pendek have been a part of their world for centuries. As long as outsiders have documented their culture, this tribe has described the animal as a co-inhabitant of the forest. They know the bounds of Orang Pendek territory and will often leave offerings of tobacco to keep them happy.
The Kubu tribe has been an invaluable source of help in Project Orang Pendek, an broad investigation that takes place in the Taman National Kerinci Seblat (TNKS) though they have not been able to lead team members to the elusive orang pendek.
In 1999, Debbie Martyr, an explorer and writer, has seen in the Forest of Sumatra what she termed as a “bipedal half-ape, half-gibbon looking orang pendek.” She is said to continue her search to collect more evidences. Along with British photographer Jeremy Holden, she engaged in a 15-year project beginning in the early 1990s and funded by Fauna and Flora International. The scope of the project was to systematically document eye-witness accounts of the animal and to obtain photographic proof of its existence via camera-trapping methods. Debbie and Jeremy did not succeed in proving its existence (Martyr has since moved on to head TNKS’s Tiger Protection and Conservation Unit), but they collected several foot print casts that appear to be from Orang Pendek and claim to have personally seen the animal on several occasions while working in the forest.
Hairs and casts of a foot print found by Three British men – Adam Davies, Andrew Sanderson and Keith Townley – while traveling in Kerinci were analyzed by scientists from 2001 to 2003. Dr. David Chivers, a primate biologist from the University of Cambridge, compared the cast with those from other known primates and local animals and concluded:
…the cast of the footprint taken was definitely an ape with a unique blend of features from gibbon, orang-utan, chimpanzee, and human. From further examination the print did not match any known primate species and I can conclude that this points towards there being a large unknown primate in the forests of Sumatra.
Dr. Hans Brunner, a hair analysis expert from Australia famous for his involvement in the Lindy Chamberlain case in 1980, compared the hairs to those of other primates and local animals and concluded that they originated from a previously undocumented species of primate. Dr. Todd Disotell, a biological anthropologist from New York University, recently performed DNA analysis on the hairs and found nothing but human DNA in the sample. He stressed, however, that contamination by people who handled the hairs could have introduced this DNA and that the original DNA could have decomposed.
Currently, National Geographic is funding a multi-year camera-trapping project led by Dr. Peter Tse of Dartmouth College and aimed at providing photographic documentation of Orang Pendek. The project began trapping in TNKS in September 2005
Orang Pendek’s reported physical characteristics differentiate it from any other species of animal known to inhabit the area. All witnesses describe it as an ape- or human-like animal. Its bipedality, fur coloring, and southerly location on the island make orangutans an unlikely explanation, and its bipedality, size, and other physical characteristics make gibbons, the only apes known to inhabit the area, unlikely as well. Many therefore propose that Orang Pendek could represent a new genus of primate or a new species or subspecies of orangutan or gibbon.
As far back as Mr. Van Heerwarden’s account of Orang Pendek, people have speculated that the animal may in fact be a “missing link” (a hominid representing an earlier stage in human evolution). In October 2004, scientists published claims of the discovery of skeletal remains of a new species of human (Homo floresiensis) in caves on Flores Island (another island in the Indonesian archipelago) dating from 12,000 years ago. The species was described as being roughly one meter tall. The recency of Homo floresiensis’ continued existence and the similarities between its physical description and the accounts of Orang Pendek have led to renewed speculation in this respect.
Other powerfully built, hairy, man-like creatures seem to have lived near Laotian/Vietnam border until the bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail destroyed their habitat. They were called Nguoi-rung by the locals. Sightings seem to be concentrated on the hills of the Chu Mo Ry near the Cambodian border.
