The extinction of the dodo within less than a century of its discovery called attention to the previously unrecognised problem of human involvement in the disappearance of entire species. Since then, a large amount of subfossil material has been collected on Mauritius, mostly from the Mare aux Songes swamp. ![]() Among these is a dried head, the only soft tissue of the dodo that remains today. In the 19th century, research was conducted on a small quantity of remains of four specimens that had been brought to Europe in the early 17th century. Its extinction was not immediately noticed, and some considered it to be a myth. The last widely accepted sighting of a dodo was in 1662. In the following years, the bird was hunted by sailors and invasive species, while its habitat was being destroyed. The first recorded mention of the dodo was by Dutch sailors in 1598. It is presumed that the dodo became flightless because of the ready availability of abundant food sources and a relative absence of predators on Mauritius. One account states its clutch consisted of a single egg. It used gizzard stones to help digest its food, which is thought to have included fruits, and its main habitat is believed to have been the woods in the drier coastal areas of Mauritius. It has been depicted with brownish-grey plumage, yellow feet, a tuft of tail feathers, a grey, naked head, and a black, yellow, and green beak. Though the dodo has historically been considered fat and clumsy, it is now thought to have been well-adapted for its ecosystem. As these vary considerably, and only some of the illustrations are known to have been drawn from live specimens, its exact appearance in life remains unresolved, and little is known about its behaviour. The dodo's appearance in life is evidenced only by drawings, paintings, and written accounts from the 17th century. Subfossil remains show the dodo was about 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) tall and may have weighed 10.6–17.5 kg (23–39 lb) in the wild. A white dodo was once thought to have existed on the nearby island of Réunion, but this is now believed to have been confusion based on the also-extinct Réunion ibis and paintings of white dodos. The closest living relative of the dodo is the Nicobar pigeon. The dodo's closest genetic relative was the also-extinct Rodrigues solitaire, the two forming the subfamily Raphinae of the family of pigeons and doves. The dodo (Raphus cucullatus) is an extinct flightless bird that was endemic to the island of Mauritius, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. The research was published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.Wikipedia Rate this definition: 0.0 / 0 votes Paleontologist Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History in New York explained how the dodo got its reputation: "It had a catchy name, had a ridiculous appearance, was flightless, and because of its lack of fear toward humans, probably due to its isolated habitat, made easy prey: traits which easily could have been attributed to stupidity."īut Norell added, "Intelligence is a very hard quantity to measure." Their willingness to be driven onto the boats is, I think, what led to people thinking they were dumb. "Why would they fear something they've never seen? They had no natural predators on the islands before humans arrived. Because of this, sailors herded the birds onto their boats for fresh meat later in their voyages. ![]() Driven to extinction by 1660sĭriven into extinction largely by human hunting, the last dodo was seen in 1662. Gold said dodos exhibited no fear of humans when people reached Mauritius in the 1500s. The weird-looking, ground-nesting bird had a pointed beak and rounded head, stood about 1 metre tall and weighed up to about 23 kg. The dodo lived on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius. "Common pigeons are actually smarter than they get credit for, as they were trained as message carriers during the world wars." "If we take brain size - or rather, volume, as we measured here - as a proxy for intelligence, then the dodo was as smart as a common pigeon," paleontologist Eugenia Gold of Stony Brook University in New York state said. A skeleton of a Mauritius Dodo bird stands at an exhibition in the Mauritius Institute Museum in Port Louis in this Dec.
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