![]() Subfossil remains show the dodo was about 3 ft 3 in tall and may have weighed 23–47 lbs. A white dodo was once thought to have existed on the nearby island of Réunion, but this is now thought to have been confusion based on the 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. Summer's Auction House director Rupert van der Werff set the guide price for the skeleton to be auctioned Tuesday in Billinghurst is estimated to be between 300,000-500,000 pounds ($373,630 to $622,780), noting that interest in the composite skeleton, was high. Sailors hunted the dodo into extinction in the 17th century and it has come to symbolize the harsh impact man can have on the world's ecosystem. The bird's name recognition was enhanced by Lewis Carroll, who included a dodo in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Adult Dodo birds were the size of a German Shepherd dog. The rare bird was extirpated by hungry sailors in its native New Zealand during the 1700's. See highlights from the collections in an online exhibition, in a collaboration between the Museum and Google Arts & Culture.A Billinghurst, England auction of a Dodo bird skeleton garnered $416,000. Museum research collections hold close to a million bird specimens, representing more than 95% of the world's known bird species. ![]() Knowing more about the ecological history of Mauritius may reveal new information about the evolutionary history of this fascinating species. The dodo had evolved in isolation for millions of years and was unable to adapt to this new change. Its downfall came when humans arrived on the island and brought a host of competing animals that quickly overran the region. The species then became perfectly adapted to the Mauritian ecosystem. The ancestral pigeon lost its ability to fly because it had no natural predators, there was plenty of food on the ground and flying is very energy-intensive. We are using DNA sequencing to pin down the dodo's relationship to other birds.Īt some point, an ancestral relative of the dodo would have had to fly to get to Mauritius - it then evolved once it got there. Why was the dodo only found in Mauritius? Given their inability to fly, it suggests their brain was well-suited to sniffing out food on the ground. They also had large olfactory bulbs, which process smells. It was the same with the dodo - they wanted it to be more spectacular than any bird that came before.Īnalysis of the dodo's anatomy shows that it was actually very well-adapted to living in Mauritius.ĬT scans of skulls in the Museum's collection show that dodos were relatively intelligent birds, with large brains. In the paintings of the time, artists tended to make newly discovered animals look like bits of meat on legs. Most of these illustrations appeared in popular books and articles. Each illustrator wanted to make it bigger, fatter and more grotesque than previous work, just to sell the story. Over the following decades the image changed. The first illustrations o f the dodo were by mariners visiting Mauritius - they showed a slim, athletic bird. For a long time it was assumed that dodos were fat and stupid.
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