Comments on: New Name Nominee: Johor Hominid

By: shumway10973

shumway10973 — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 01:24:22 +0000

why is everyone surprised that malaysia would have something like this? It’s not far from the other land masses that have all sorts of different primates. I’m glad they finally found a name that fits

By: cor2879

cor2879 — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 18:08:48 +0000

Unfortunately I have to say that Chow has almost no credibility at this point with me anyway… until he is more forthcoming with the photos, or at the very least offers up some explanation why he is not publishing them he is just another publicity seeker like Biscardi.

By: corax

corax — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 08:17:01 +0000

Surely it is very premature to assume that the Johor Bigfoot (if it exists) is a hominid (i.e. a member of the family Hominidae). It would seem to me much more likely that the creature would turn out to be an ape. Note: I do not agree with those who try to subsume Pongidae under Homindae on dubious cladistic grounds.

The name therefore is, as far as I am concerned, entirely inappropriate until more is known. Perhaps Johor Anthropoid is less controversial (though doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue).

By: apiraymond

apiraymond — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 05:44:24 +0000

I am not surprised at the factual errors. Sean Ang Bee Huat is the cofounder of the website and an IT specialist working in Malaysian Institute of Microelectronics Systems (MIMOS). Perhaps as he said, there is some misunderstanding and misquote here regarding his paleoanthropology background. Obviously, he partnered with Vincent Chow to set up the website. As to whether he is a paleoanthropologist, perhaps he can answer to clear the confusion.

By: jjames1

jjames1 — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 00:07:42 +0000

Kainan, I don’t think your comment is petty in any way. Making a basic factual error like that seriously calls into question the credibility of the entire site, in my opinion. It’s embarrassing.

By: Scarfe

Scarfe — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 21:18:38 +0000

I was going to say the same thing Kainan said, binturongs are not apes. While looking isn’t always knowning, looking at binturongs clearly shows they are not apes but civet-related.

A little factual error? Perhaps, but not one that gives me confidence

By: Kainan

Kainan — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 20:15:51 +0000

This may be petty, and off the subject of the Johor hominid, but in the first paragraph on the homepage of the Johor hominid refers to a binturong as an ape along with gibbons. Binturongs are related to civets and meerkats, and are not even primates, let alone apes. This kind of error really bugs me. It also doesn’t contribute much to a site’s credibility.

By: tpeter

tpeter — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 16:10:42 +0000

Dear Loren,

I agree–Johor Hominid is short, simple, exact, and to the point–it clearly and unambiguously designates a bipedal primate, of or closely related to the genus “Homo,” native to the Johor region of Malaysia. It clearly differentiates these creatures from any and all other Unknown Hominids and Mystery Primates with whom the popular media might confuse them that either might or might not be conspecific with the Johor cryptids, for all we know (or DON’T know) at this time–e.g., from Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti, Orang Pendek, the Flores “Hobbits,” Orang-utans, Mawas, etc., etc.

Cheers, T. Peter

By: malaysian

malaysian — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 15:53:25 +0000

Well, I just looked at johorhominid.org and whoever wrote the introduction does not know some basic facts about Malaysian primates.

Firstly, it describes the binturong as an ape when the binturong is actually a civet cat!

Then anyone with even an introductory book or checklist of Malaysian mammmals will know that there are 3 lesser apes in Peninsular Malaysia: the white-handed gibbon, the agile gibbon and the siamang.

The people who set up the website are not even familar with Malaysian primates. And they are going to reveal to us the most spectacular discovery in primatology?

By: seanang

seanang — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 15:15:12 +0000

Hi All,

Sorry for problems. Give me another 48 hours to fix them. Our initial plan is to upload some basic info there for our own references.. we didnt expect the traffic to be so huge this evening..

The sudden increase of traffic causes the site to hang..

Will inform the latest progress here once the site is up.

Sean Ang
Co-founder,
johorhominid.org