Van Herwaarden's orang pendek
In 1923 a Dutch surveyor, Mr van Herwaarden, wrote that he watched a dark, hairy, human-like creature in a tree in Sumatra, the most quoted colonial account of the orang pendek ('short person').
1923 CE · -2.30, 103.50 · status: account
The account
He described it as covered in dark hair, with long hair on its head and a human-looking face, and said he could not bring himself to shoot it. Sightings by villagers and visitors continue, mostly around Kerinci Seblat National Park. British writer Debbie Martyr investigated from 1989 and reported sightings of her own, the first in 1989 and another in 1994.
The sceptical view
No specimen, clear photograph or accepted DNA exists. Sun bears, gibbons, siamangs and orangutans may explain many reports, and hair tested in the 2014 Oxford study came from a known animal.