There is a well known naturalist named Dr. John Mackinnon who discovered the Vu Quang ox in 1992 and other new Vietnamese ungulates such as the giant muntjac. Dr. John Mackinon has been working for conservation advisor to the world wide fund for nature and now director of the asian Bureau of conservation. He has also undertaken a major review of china's biodiversity and stablished a program to conserve the rain forest of southwestern Yunnan. As a relable witness goes you cann't get any better than Dr. John Mackinnon who in his book In search of the red ape. Is where we will see why that it is best to lump the Batutut and Orang pendix together as one cryptid.
" I was travelling alone along a hill ridge on the far side of the river where I had never ventured before. The path was good, though rather muddy, and I haven't had a care in the world. Suddenly I stopped dead, amazed at what I saw. I knelt down to examine the disturbing footprints in the earth, a print so like a man's yet so defintely not a man's that my skin crept and felt a strong desire to head home. The print was roughly triangular in shape, about six inches long by four across. The toes looked quite human, as did the shapely heel, but the sole was both too short and to broad to be that of a man and the big toe was on the oppisite side to what seemed to be the arch of the foot. Farther ahead I saw more tracks and went to examine them. There where imprints of both left and right feet, though which was which I could not tell from their curious distribution. Many of the prints had been obliterated by recent pigs but a few were quite clear and I made drawings of some of these and notes of their relative postions.I found two dozen footprints in all, scattered along some fifty yards of path. Back at camp I showed Bahat my sketches and asked what animal could make such tracks. Without a moment's hesitation he replaid Batutut. When I suggested that perhaps a bear could make such prints, his pride was wonded. ' They are to big for a bear and they have no claws. Morover, bears tracks are diffent shap.' I secured photographs of the feet of sun-bears and inded they were too small and diffently shaped to be responsable for the tracks I seen. Later I saw a plaster cast of even larger footprint from malaya that had definitely been made by the same animal, there known as orang-pendik, or short fellow." - Dr. John Mackinnon (In search of the red ape - 113 -114)
With footprints being the fact of the matter and they can be treated scientifically. We should listen to Dr.John Mackinnon who said that the footprints came from the same animal. So by this a relable witness with scientifc training we should not split the Batutut and Orang pendix but lump them together as the same animal until a holo type (typespecimen) is uptained for classification. Instead of splinting them apart by cryptozoologist and treading them as seprate cryptid do to anatodole reports by witness who can be wrong, we have strong evidence against this argument. Roy P. Mackal said it best "At this stage of our inadequate knowledge I beleive it is best to be a "lumper" rather than a "spliter" and not to pay too much attention to what appear to be minor differences."
For futher information -
In search of Orang pendex - http://www.orangpendex.org
Frontiers Of Zoology - http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com
Refernces -
1. Dr. John Mackinnon, In search of the red ape. p 113- 114 .
2. Roy P. Mackal, Search for hidden animals: An Inquiry into zoological mysteries p26
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