“Even though the dodo is so well known in popular culture, scientifically actually it was much more of a wasteland,” says Leon Claessens, a paleontologist at College of the Holy Cross. The scarcity of physical evidence, combined with unreliable descriptions and fanciful illustrations of the birds, allowed myths and misconceptions to take root.
Sometime during the second half of the 17th century-the exact date is unknown-the last dodo took its last breath.Īt the time, the concept of extinction-the notion that an entire species could vanish with no possibility of return-had not yet been developed, nor had advanced taxidermy techniques, and few good dodo specimens survived.
The first published record of the bird dates to 1599, a year after the Dutch claimed Mauritius, turning the island into a port of call and, later, a settlement. Not long thereafter, scientists believe, the dodo’s ancestors arrived on the island, eventually evolving into giants and losing their ability to fly. Approximately 8 million years ago, the small volcanic island of Mauritius formed in the Indian Ocean. The origins of the dodo, which belongs to the pigeon family, remain something of a mystery. “This bird was perfectly adapted to its environment.” “The dodo’s always been considered to be a comical animal … so ludicrous that it was destined to become extinct, which is absolutely not the case,” says Julian Hume, an avian paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. Over the last several years, anatomical and ecological studies have shed new light on the dodo and its history, redeeming the bird’s dismal reputation. There’s just one small problem with this shopworn extinction tale: It’s almost entirely false. Less than 100 years later, it was extinct.Īt least, that’s how the story usually goes.
When the Dutch colonized the dodo’s small island home at the end of the 16th century, the earthbound oddity toddled straight into the waiting arms of hungry sailors and settlers. It was a walking evolutionary error practically preordained to die out. The bird was fat and flightless, clueless and clumsy. We know that it was well established when Dutch sailors became the first human visitors to Mauritius in 1598, but there’s still so much more about the dodo that we don’t understand.The dodo was a sitting duck. Some sources claim that the name came from 16th century Portuguese sailors who called them ‘doudo’, meaning ‘fool’ or ‘crazy.’ The word ‘dodo’ isn’t exactly kind either.Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus, who devised the modern system of naming organisms, bought into the misconception that dodos were clumsy and stupid.In reference to this, and the dodo’s portly frame, they called the dodos ‘kermisgans.’ The day after they weighed anchor in Mauritius, the Dutch crew of the Gelderland observed the festival of Kermesse, which involved eating fattened fowl.They called the dodo ‘walchvögel’ or ‘repulsive bird.’ Seafarers who ate dodo meat, described it as tough and unpleasant.The Dutch sailors of the day dubbed dodos as ‘dodaersen’ or ‘fat-arses,’ because of the birds’ generously-proportioned backsides.
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