Who knows how many dodos were killed to satisfy gustatory curiosity? Still, the fact that dodos were regularly hunted greatly contributed to their demise, and, contrary to the common belief that they had a disgusting flavor, Jan Den Hengst has drawn on several historical sources to show that dodo meat was considered quite palatable by sailors. Our species created a major ecological disruption that many unique island species could nope cope with. The extinction of the dodo was not simply a matter of systematic extermination. Humans hunted the naive birds, of course, but the rats, cats, pigs, and other animals that we brought along with us were just as destructive. No single cause drove the dodo into extinction. That an entire species could disappear simply did not occur to them. Over a century before the idea of extinction was accepted, those who extirpated the dodo did not keep detailed records of the bird’s decline. (There is some doubt here, as some historians think Lamotius was referring to the also-extinct red rail, but Hume and co-authors pointed out that Lamotius was a skilled observer of nature who was unlikely to confuse this distinctive dodo with the red rail.) Using these late sightings with the estimation techniques of Roberts and Solow, the scientists came up with a new extinction date of 1693, although we will probably never know when the last dodo actually died. Hugo’s successor, Isaac Joan Lamotius, also jotted down notes about still-living dodos in his notebooks at least twelve times between 16, with the last capture of a dodo recorded on November 25, 1688. Historical documents described by Julian Hume, David Martill, and Christopher Dewdney in 2004 confirmed that dodos were killed for the Opperhoofd (governor) of Mauritius, Hubert Hugo, on August 16, 1673. Until recently, the last confirmed dodo sighting on its home island of Mauritius was made in 1662, but a 2003 estimate by David Roberts and Andrew Solow placed the extinction of the bird around 1690.
It has not been very long since we lost the dodo – only about three centuries – but the exact date has been difficult to pin down. In order to understand the legacy of the dodo, a little background on its demise is required. The dodo looked so stupid because we made it so.
#Real dodo drawing license#
Notes, skeletal scraps, a disregard for soft-tissue anatomy, and a bit of artistic license created this symbol of extinction. What other fate could there have been for such a foolish-looking ground pigeon? A grotesque, tubby creature with huge nostrils and a ridiculous little poof of tail feathers, Raphus cucullatus had the air of a bird that stood still with a blank stare as the scythe of extinction lopped off its head.īut the dodo I have always known is not a true reflection of the bird. I hate to say it, but the dodo looked as if it deserved extinction. – Charlotte Turner Smith, A natural history of birds: intended chiefly for young persons, 1807 Its history is little known but if the representation of it be at all just, this is the ugliest and most disgusting of birds, resembling in its appearance one of those bloated and unwieldy persons who by a long course of vicious and gross indulgences are become a libel on the human figure. The Dodo, Didus, is a bird that inhabits some of the islands of the East Indies.
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