From the NYT:

Scientists Find Skeletons of Miniature People
"Once upon a time, but not so long ago, in a tropical island midway between Asia and Australia, there lived a race of little people, whose adults stood just three and a half feet high. Despite their stature, they were mighty hunters. They made stone tools with which they speared giant rats, clubbed sleeping dragons, and hunted the packs of pygmy elephants that roamed their lost world.

The island of Flores is very isolated and, before modern times, was inhabited only by a select group of animals that managed to reach it. These then became subject to unusual evolutionary forces that propelled some toward giantism and downsized others.

The carnivorous lizards that reached Flores, perhaps on natural rafts, became giant-sized and still survive, though now confined mostly to the nearby island of Komodo; they are called Komodo dragons. Elephants are excellent swimmers; those that reached Flores evolved to a dwarf form the size of an ox."

Emily B. always mails me the best articles. I would l like to live on a magical island with large lizards rafting into the sunset and mini-elephants populating its forests. I have also, since moving to the South, become very adept at spearing giant rats.
More.

Hurrah for the Red Sox.