The Dodo Blog

Dodo Bird by Ake Lianga.

The Last Dodo, oil in canvas (2005) by Steven Kenny. (Thanks David Kleeman!)

After the news by journalists, the news by specialists, not so much different from the others, from the Natural History Museum: Bones will reveal life of dodo:

The new finds will help to piece together the environment the dodo lived in and will help us understand more about how it become extinct.

Scientists hope to find the first complete articulated skeleton of an individual dodo. This will help reveal how the dodo moved around, whether they walked with a waddle or hopped with a skip.

That’s probably not so big news to make you go to the site, so here it is more arguments: images of the dodo in their Picture Library, Dodo model at the birds gallery, and, as they suggest “Take a Dodo architectural tour. The last one was my favourite part. It doesn’t have many texts, however there are two short and amusing videos: The Dodo’s changing image, with an analysis of “Dodo expert Julian Hume” about the famous painting by Roelandt Savery, and The Dodo – The merging of myth and reality a great interview with Julian Hume made in 2003.

Birds – Illustration to the Baburnama: Loriquet (Coryllis vernalis), Horned Pheasant (Tragopan melanocephalus), Dodo (Raphus cucullatus), Ducks, and Partridges, circa 1620-1625, Institute of Oriental Studies. St. Petersburg. From Mughal Miniature Painting – An Alternative Source of History.

Alice in the Museum by Ian Goulden. (via Museum of Dust)

What a lovely dodo robot sculpture by Ann Smith, constructed out of broken electronics and machines. (Thanks P-E!)

Minaggio 76 – Although the bird is tentatively labelled Dodo? on the picture, this more likely represents a bustard being hunted by a mounted oriental gentleman with a scimitar. From Il Bestiario Barocco – Feather Book: Made in 1618 by Dionisio Minaggio, Chief Gardener of the State of Milan, the Feather Book consists of 157 collages of birds, hunters, tradesmen, musicians and Commedia del’Arte figures.

The 112 birds consist of the feathers, beaks and claws laid down in true-to-life fashion. The majority of the birds depicted were native to Lombardy although some are no longer common there. One of the birds is identified as being a representation of a Dodo – and indeed a web site on the dodo seems to accept this attribution without question. However, the bird is not particularly well drawn, uses Lombardy bird feathers rather than ones from an actual Dodo and is obviously copied from either a drawing or a description. I suspect it is done from an illustration because the costume and weapon of the Arabian hunter is so accurately depicted. Various other ornithologists who have seen the original have declared the bird to be either a Reunion Solitaire, which is at least a close relative of the Dodo, or a Great Bustard.

More about it at The Feather Book of Dionisio Minaggio. (Thanks Jaime!)

Lucy the Dodo by Crystal Pistol.

Dodo by Marion Peck

Dodo Bird sculpture at the Binder Park Zoo, by Sculpturesque Inc.