Dodo

From Free net encyclopedia

For other uses, see Dodo (disambiguation).

{{Taxobox | color = pink | name = Dodo | status = Conservation status: Extinct{{#if:{{{when|}}}| (1681) }} | image = igdodo.jpg | image_width = 200px | regnum = Animalia | phylum = Chordata | classis = Aves | ordo = Columbiformes | familia = Raphidae | genus = Raphus | genus_authority = Brisson, 1760 | species = R. cucullatus | binomial = Raphus cucullatus | binomial_authority = (Linnaeus, 1758) }}

The Mauritius Dodo (Raphus cucullatus, called Didus ineptus by Linnaeus), more commonly just Dodo, was a metre-high flightless bird of the island of Mauritius. The Dodo, which is now extinct, lived on fruit and nested on the ground.

1 Etymology
2 Description
3 Extinction
4 Family Raphidae
5 Use as a symbol
6 Dodos in popular culture
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

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Etymology

The origin of the word "Dodo" is one of controversy. Some people believe it's related to the Dutch word "dodaars" (refering to the feathers on its buttocks) the name of the little Grebe or Dabchick in the Dutch language. Probably not entirely because they shared a similar physical appearance (apart from the feathers on the buttocks), but because the dodo, like the little Grebe, couldn't walk very well, making it an easy prey for Dutch sailors. Others believe it's related to the archaic Portuguese word "doudo" meaning fool or simpleton. Yet another possibility, as author David Quammen has noted in his book "Song of the Dodo", "that 'dodo' was an onomatopoeic approximation of the bird's own call, a two-note pigeony sound like 'doo-doo'."

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Description

In December, 2005, an important site of Dodo remains was found in Mauritius, including birds of various stages of maturity. Before this find, few Dodo specimens were known. Dublin's Natural History Museum had an assembled specimen, while the most intact remains from a single bird are a skeletal foot and a head, which contains the only known soft tissue remains of the species. The decaying remnants of the last complete stuffed Dodo, in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, were burned in 1755; the foot and head were salvaged from this specimen, and are currently on display. Nevertheless, from artists' renditions we know that the Dodo had blue-grey plumage, a 23-centimetre (9-inch) blackish hooked bill with a reddish point, very small useless wings, stout yellow legs, and a tuft of curly feathers high on its rear end. Dodos were very large birds, weighing about 23 kg (50 pounds).

The breast structure was insufficient to have ever supported flight. These ground-bound birds evolved to take advantage of an island ecology with no predators.

The traditional image of the Dodo is of a fat, clumsy bird, but this view has been challenged by Andrew Kitchener, a biologist at the Royal Museum of Scotland (reported in National Geographic News, February 2002), who believes that the old drawings showed overfed captive specimens. As Mauritius has marked dry and wet seasons, the Dodo probably fattened itself on ripe fruits at the end of the wet season to live through the dry season where food was scarce; contemporary reports speak of the birds' "greedy" appetite. Thus, in captivity with food readily available, the birds would become overfed very easily. It had lived for thousands of years on Mauritius without any predators, being the largest animal then on the island (including humans - Mauritius had no native people).

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Extinction

The Dodo was entirely fearless of people, and this, in combination with its flightlessness, made it easy prey. (The island was first visited by the Portuguese in 1505, but the Dutch were the first permanent settlers on the island.)

However, when humans first arrived on Mauritius, they also brought with them other animals that had not existed on the island before, including dogs, pigs, rats and monkeys, which plundered the Dodo nests, while humans destroyed the forests where they made their homes.

There is some controversy surrounding the extinction date of the Dodo. David Roberts states that "the extinction of the Dodo is commonly dated to the last confirmed sighting in 1662, reported by shipwrecked mariner Volkert Evertsz", but other sources suggest 1681.

Roberts points out that because the sighting prior to 1662 was in 1638 (i.e. 24 years earlier), the Dodo was likely already very rare by the 1660s. However, statistical analysis of the hunting records of Isaac Joan Lamotius, carried out by Julian Hume and coworkers, gives a new estimated extinction date of 1693, with a 95% confidence interval of 1688 to 1715.

The last known Dodo was killed less than 100 years after the species' discovery, and no complete specimens are preserved, although a number of museum collections contain Dodo skeletons. A Dodo egg is on display at the East London museum in South Africa. Genetic material has been recovered from these and its analysis has confirmed that the Dodo was a close relative of pigeon species that are to be found in Africa and especially South Asia.

No one took particular notice of the extinct bird until it was featured in the Caucus race in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). With the popularity of the book, the Dodo became a household word: "as dead as a Dodo". The character was named Dodo.

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Family Raphidae

Image:ExtinctDodoBird.jpeg

Traditionally, the Dodo has been taxonomically assigned to the family Raphidae, one of two families within the Order Columbiformes. The other family, the Columbidae, consists of all pigeon and dove species.

Two Dodo-like birds were reported by sailors to be living on islands near Mauritius: in 1613 the Réunion Solitaire, Raphus solitarius on Réunion, and in 1691 the Rodrigues Solitaire, Pezophaps solitarius on Rodrigues. The latter became extinct during the 1760s.

No evidence has ever been found to support the existence of the Réunion Solitaire, and ornithologists now believe that the bird actually seen was the Réunion Flightless Ibis Threskiornis solitarius, which is also now extinct. When it was believed to exist, it was also referred to as 'White Dodo', as travellers' descriptions of the Flightless Ibis correctly gave its plumage as mainly white, and as there exist some paintings of white Dodos, it was believed that these showed the assumed Dodo of Réunion. However, at least some descriptions clearly state that wingtips and tail of the Réunion "Solitaire" were black (as it certainly was the case, still seen in its close living relative, the Sacred Ibis), while the paintings show an entirely white bird (apart from what is probably soiling of some feathers with dirt in captivity). The paintings were most certainly of captive birds in some European menagerie; they show a rounded, not hooked, beak, which seems to indicate cropping as a precaution against attacks on the keepers (travellers' reports state that, if cornered, Dodos would bite quite viciously, as can be expected of a bird with such considerable bulk). The most likely source of the 'White Dodo' paintings is a small number of albinotic Dodos — perhaps even only one — that reached Europe and were kept as curiosities.

Dr Alan Cooper and Dr Beth Shapiro from Oxford's Henry Wellcome Ancient Biomolecules Centre, Dr Dean Sibthorpe, Andrew Rambaut, Dr Graham Wragg, Dr Olaf Bininda-Emonds and Dr Patricia Lee from Oxford's Department of Zoology, and Dr Jeremy Austin from the Natural History Museum, London, carried out research in 2000-2002 by extracting tiny fragments of Dodo DNA. The samples were taken from the only surviving Dodo specimen with soft tissues remaining - the 300 year old 'Alice in Wonderland' specimen in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. DNA was also extracted from a Solitaire bone excavated from a cave on Rodrigues Island. The results of this analysis showed that, as expected, the Dodo and Solitare were very closely related to each other. However, rather than belonging to a separate family from the pigeons, the DNA results showed that the Dodo and Solitaire actually belong inside the pigeon family, and most closely related to the Nicobar Pigeon, Caloenus nicobarica.

In 1973, scientists discovered that a species of tree on Mauritius, the dodo tree Sideroxylon grandiflorum = Calvaria major, was dying out. There were only 13 specimens reported left, and all of them were about 300 years old, dating from the time when the last Dodo was killed. It was discovered that the Dodos ate the seeds of the tree, and only by passing through the digestive tract of the Dodo did the seeds become active and start to grow. After a while, it was discovered that the same effect could be accomplished by letting turkeys eat the seeds. The tree species has been saved. However, more recent research suggests that young specimens were simply overlooked and that it probably was the extinct Broad-billed Parrot Lophopsittacus mauritianus rather than Dodos which were chiefly responsible for spreading the seeds. See the dodo tree article for more details and references.

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Use as a symbol

Image:Coat of arms of Mauritius.png

The Dodo appears on the Coat of arms of Mauritius, its origin. It's the symbol of the Brasseries de Bourbon, a popular brewer on Réunion Island.
The Dodo is the symbol and mascot of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Jersey Zoological Park, founded by Gerald Durrell.
The Dodo is the name, symbol and mascot of Finnish environmental organization Dodo. [1]

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Dodos in popular culture

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The Dodo's significance as one of the best-known extinct animals and its singular appearance has led to its widespread use in literature and popular culture.

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References

Errol Fuller (2003): Dodo: A Brief History - Universe. ISBN 0789308401
Beth Shapiro et al (2002): Flight of the Dodo Science 295: 1683.
Errol Fuller (2002): Dodo : from extinction to icon
Georg Menting und Gerhard Hard (2001): Vom Dodo lernen - Öko-Mythen um einen Symbolvogel des Naturschutzes - In: Naturschutz und Landschaftsplanung H. 1, ISSN 09406808
Vincent Ziswiler (1996): Der Dodo - Fantasien und Fakten zu einem verschwundenen Vogel, Zoologisches Museum der Unviversität Zürich, Ausstellungskatalog, ISBN 3952104310
David Quammen (1996): The Song of the Dodo - New York
Clara Pinto Correia (2003): Return of the Crazy Bird : the sad, strange tale of the dodo - Copernicus Books. ISBN 0387988769