New Orang Pendek Expedition
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 10th, 2007
Adam Davies, who left on September 2, 2007, is in the midst of another expedition in pursuit of Orang Pendek in Sumatra, in conjunction with a History Channel documentary. While on site, obviously with a camera crew, Davies is meeting up with a British photographer Jeremy Holden, who worked with Debbie Martyr.
Davies is hoping to build on his successful track finds of his previous trips to Sumatra. Exploration of areas with current activity and previous footprint finds will hopefully produce more positive results. Any links between Orang Pendek and Homo floresiensis will also be investigated.
The following photographs are from the past explorations of Sumatra by Adam Davies and Andrew Sanderson.
The rather specific Orang Pendek track they found, photographed, and cast, shows toes at the end of the foot and something out to the side, which may be from another toe, the hallux (which would be typical for a pongid).
The Extreme Expeditions pages show the obtaining of the 2004 cast in Sumatra, on their pages 13 through 15. They also show where and how they obtained the 2001 cast (below) here, the original that was on display at Bates College (of which I now have a first-generation copy).
Please click on the image for a larger version.
Please click on the image for a larger version.
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It is always nice to see expeditions like this going out and searching for cryptids like this. We don’t get near enough here in Louisiana.
hey loren awesome new article about a new orang pendak expedition. please keep us posted for new updates about this expedition. thanks bill green
I hope they find something new.
Whereas H. floresiensis has a regular human-type foot. In fact, it could be that Orang Pendek, and maybe the Nape, are the only bipedal pongid/hominids who don’t.
Good luck! I just had a question pop into my mind (and at this time of the morning I’m quite surprised). Someone here speculated if this critter wasn’t a type or relation to the orangutans. Because of the average way orangutans walk (semi-sorta bipedal) do we get hand prints as well as footprints? This may just be a larger version.
shumway10973,
Orangutans walk bipedally wile on the ground. They aren’t generally knuckle-walkers like chimps and gorillas. Of course they can assume other postures, as can humans, but the norm for them is reportedly bipedal walking (when they aren’t in the trees, though they often walk bipedally on branches, too.)
Orangutans are not proficient bipedal walkers. In fact, orangutans are mostly graceful in trees and in fact rather awkward on the ground. Bipedal locomotion is rare for orangutans and they lack the needed balance to do so for any length of time. Instead they typically travel on the ground on all fours, using the palms of their hands or knuckle pads on the back digits. Orangutans are primarily arboreal and spend most of their time in the trees. They travel through trees by a process of locomotion known as “brachiating”, by which they hook their fingers over branches and swing along.