In this double demotion the old giants have become pigmies while you were looking the other way.

They suggest that dwarf humans roamed the island - hunting pigmy elephants and fending off komodo dragons - for more than half a million years.

The cause of the rare stranding of the female pigmy sperm whale off Banff Bay in Abderdeenshire is not yet clear.

Pigmy elephants and komodo dragons were commonplace, but crocodiles, giant rats, frogs and birds shared the island with the “hobbits”.

Here we see a bald-headed Pigmy hero riding triumphantly on a mighty crocodile, regardless of the open-mouthed, bellowing hippopotamus behind him.

Pigmies are born in palaces, while over the children of genius is the roof of straw.