The closest relative to our beloved dodo is the Nicobar Pigeon So, really, the saying ‘as dumb as a dodo’ is inaccurate they weren’t stupid. Instead they were bludgeoned to death and eaten. So when the humans came along the dodos just waddled up to them expecting new mates. They lived a chilled out life safe in the knowledge that they weren’t going to be mauled in their sleep. Not long after its discovery, a Dutch captain called the dodo a ‘Walghvogel’ which means ‘wallowbird.’ Nobody is quite sure when it was renamed dodo but it is likely the word is derived from the Dutch ‘dodoor,’ meaning ‘sluggard,’ or the Portuguese word ‘doudo,’ meaning ‘crazy.’ Rude.ĭodos didn’t face any natural predators before the Dutch settlers landed on Mauritius in 1598. ![]() They went through a bit of an image change … Scientists have therefore set about reconstructing these little fat bundles of fluff by unearthing different bones and piecing them together to make a whole dodo. Nowadays dodos are one of the most famous birds in the world, but back in the day people thought they were an irrelevance and didn’t bother to preserve them. ![]() ‘How about the skeleton!?’ I hear you cry … nope … that is in fact a composite made from the bones of lots of different Dodos. It is in fact a model made from swan and goose feathers. That lovely stuffed dodo you go and see every Saturday at the Natural History Museum – IT’S NOT REAL. Although this big waddling bird is now sadly deceased we can still look back fondly on its life with these do-lightful facts! The tree depended on the dodo and when the dodo became extinct, the tree became endangered.Ahhh, the blessed dodo. The seed of a Calvaria tree was very hard and needed the dodo bird to crack it. Also, the seeds from the Calvaria tree on the island of Mauritius could only sprout and grow after they had gone through the digestive system of the dodo.ġ7. Some birds were reported to wade in the shallow water at the shore, searching for fish, but the most remarked upon eating habit of the dodo was their need to swallow stones. Since the Dodo couldn’t fly, they nested on the ground, laying a single egg in a thick nest of grass.ġ5. The head was reported to be lighter grey than the body, and the dodo possessed a long, thick, hooked beak, which was either light green or pale yellow in color.ġ4. Its feet each had four toes, three in front and one angled to the back that served as a thumb, with thick, black claws.ġ3. The dodo was covered in soft, grey feathers, with a plume of white at its tail, and its legs were short, stubby, and yellow in color.ġ2. Its wings were small and incapable of flight. It is estimated that the average dodo weighed anywhere from 45 to 50 pounds.ġ1. By about 1690, the Mauritius Dodo was extinct, and the White Dodo became extinct in about 1770.ġ0. Since the birds were easy to capture, within a short time the Dutch colonists (along with sailors and visitors) soon killed most of the Dodo population.ĩ. The Dodos were first found on an island he named Mauritius in honor of his patron, Prince Maurice of Nassau, ruler of the Netherlands.Ĩ. The earliest accounts of the Dodos by the Dutch navigator, Admiral Jacob Corneliszoon van Neck, date from 1598. It was immortalised in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and was a favourite for Dodgson who had a stammer: Do-do- dodgson.ħ. The dodo is the most famous of all the creatures to have become extinct in historical times. The most famous reconstruction of the Dodo was conducted in the taxidermy studio of Roland Ward in London.Ħ. Illustrations and reconstructions often show the Dodo as a magnificently overweight, pigeon-like bird that allegedly had a "large body and small wings, far too small to permit him to fly". These are the Dodo of Mauritius, the White Dodo, the Solitaire of Reunion, and the Rodriguez Solitaire.ĥ. The Dodo species group (formerly Raphidae) consisted of at least four similar flightless birds called " didine" birds that lived in similar, but different, habitats. As one of the earliest species to be identified as extinct, the Dodo gained tremendous celebrity throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and continues to represent a source of considerable fascination and interest in popular culture today.Ĥ. Its very name is synonymous with the extinction process, and this single species is rivalled in its unenviable position only by the dinosaurs, which instead represent an entire superorder of several hundred known species.ģ. ![]() The Dodo, a large, flightless pigeon found on the island of Mauritius until the seventeenth century, is probably today’s greatest icon of extinction. Although the exact origin of the name "dodo" is unknown, it may have come from either the Portuguese ' doudo' meaning foolish or the Dutch word 'dodoor' which translates to mean sluggard (lazy-one).Ģ.
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