The Dodo Blog

The first ever dodo bones, a fascinating story: A team of Mauritian and European experts are about to dig up Mare aux Songes. George Clark was the first to discover dodo bones on the same site some 140 years ago by Alan Grihault.

During his spare time Clark had made numerous attempts at finding remains of the Dodo. Around 1860, Dr. Philip Ayres requested Clark to join him in a search for bones at the Fort Hendrick site, but they found nothing. Clark was puzzled by the fact that the Natural History Society had been unlucky in their constant search for bones. He believed that the best places look in were the alluvial deposits found in the mouth of rivers.

Since he was teaching in Mahébourg, he concentrated his efforts in the south-eastern part of the island. On his map, he noticed three rivers running into the sea, forming a marshy delta in an area close to where the airport is now located. He assumed that if any bones had been washed away by these rivers, they would be deposited in the mud of the delta.

During the 1860s, the first railway lines were being constructed in Mauritius, and George Clark extended his search area along railway excavations between Curepipe and Mahébourg. [..]

It must have been an exciting moment when he recorded the following in his Journal:

“Shortly before the completion of the railway [19th October 1865] I was walking along the embankment one morning when I noticed some Coolies removing peat soil from a small morass (…) I stopped and examined them as they appeared to belong to birds and we had always been on the lookout for bones of the(…) Dodo. So I filled my pocket with the most promising ones for further examination.

A Mr Clarke, the Government schoolmaster of Mahébourg, had Professor Owen’s book on the Dodo so I took the bones to him for comparison (…) The result showed that many of the bones undoubtedly belonged to the Dodo.”

Update: unfortunately the article from Lexpress is gone.

The Extinct Dodo is a fine page with technical and historical information about the birds and old drawings of them.

Contradicting records left some confusion over their traits, habits and palatability. Some accounts said they were fast runners, some said slow and lazy. Skeletal examinations lead some to believe common illustrations of today are inaccurate. Some believe it stood taller than depicted

Dodos likely ranged in weight according to seasonal diets and reproduction periods. They grew to about 50 lbs. They had a greenish yellow bill, black fluffy down and feathers and black feet.

Certainly they were eaten as many wildfowl were then whether tasty or not. They could be caught by hand, but one had to be careful. Their enormous, hooked bill could inflict severe injury.

The The Extinct Dodo is part of the Extinct Birds site. Illustrations by: Alice B. Woodward, Wilhelm Kuhnert, an unknown artist and Roland Savery.

This illustration by Roland Savery was painted using a live Dodo which was brought to Europe in the early seventeenth century.

Bringing the dodo back to life …, an excellent article by By Steve Connor, from The New Zealand Herald, about this new expedition:

Much of what is known about the appearance of the dodo comes from contemporary drawings and paintings. But these were often inaccurate, subject to the fashions of the time – such as the 17th century predilection for painting over-plump birds.

“The dodo, one of the most documented and famous of birds and a leading contender as the icon of extinction, has endured more than its fair share of overzealous misinterpretation,” said Dr Hume.

In fact, it became so mythologised that some 19th-century scholars began to doubt that it ever existed, believing that the rather poorly preserved specimens were elaborate hoaxes.

In fact all of these specimens were made from the incomplete skeletons of many different individuals. Trying to guess what the real dodo looked like was an uphill struggle.

One problem was its weight. Many of the early paintings depict it as an overweight, almost obese creature that could barely support itself. But, at least one illustration dating from the first Dutch exploration depicts the dodo as a rather slim, even nimble bird.

In reality, it is possible that the dodo was both fat and slim. In other words it may have been adapted to putting on weight quickly in times of plenty – during the wet season, for instance, when there was lots of ripe fruit to eat – which would have allowed it to survive the leaner times of the dry season.

Dodos kept in captivity could just have been overfed, which is why they tended to look much fatter than other birds of a similar shape and size.