Please confirm your birth date:

Please enter a valid date

Please enter your full birth year

This content is restricted.

Prehistoric Hobbit Humans May Have Been Hunted by Giant Six-Foot Storks

Are you familiar with "hobbits," or Homo florsiensis, the wee, extinct human species thought to have lived tens of thousands of years ago? Are you aware that they might have been hunted and eaten by enormous, six-foot-tall storks?

Two paleontologists, Hanneke Meijer and the awesomely-named Rokus Awe Due, found several fossils of the winged beasts in the same cave where the remains of Homo florsiensis were originally discovered in 2003. It likely weighed around 35 pounds, and was, doubtless, absolutely terrifying. It probably ate fishes, lizards and birds, and, according to Meijer, "possibly in principle even small, juvenile hobbits."

Now, let's be clear, there is, as of right now, no direct evidence that the storks ate tiny cave-people. Just evidence that they probably lived at around the same time. And evidence that the birds were humongous, and frighteningly large, and the little miniature people were basically snack-sized. So as completely awesome, in every sense of the word, as it is to imagine a bird the size of a person, hunting and killing small fantasy creatures, just remember that it's only a conjecture! In fact, you may want to repeat that to yourself, a couple times, before you go to bed tonight.

[LiveScience]

Send an email to Max Read, the author of this post, at max@gawker.com.

Prehistoric Hobbit Humans May Have Been Hunted by Giant Six-Foot Storks