The Dodo Blog

There are no dodos images, but it’s a very interesting news about Mauritius: Mauritius turns wildlife clock back 400 years from Reuters by Ed Harris:

Giant tortoises doze in the shade as rare lizards slip under bushes and endangered birds chatter in the sunlit trees overhead.

On a small wooded island off southern Mauritius, environmentalists are trying to turn back time to an era before humans ever set foot on the volcanic Indian Ocean archipelago.

“We want to turn the clock back 400 years,” says Ashok Khadun, a conservation expert with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation (MWF), a local non-governmental organisation.

Sadly, they are too late to help the Mauritius giant skink — a type of large grey lizard — its broad-billed parrot, scops owl or lesser flying fox, and many other species now extinct.

And, of course, the dodos:

But the arrival of Europeans led by the Portuguese in the 16th century triggered an ecological disaster with the slashing of forest habitats and the introduction of predators like rats.

By far the most famous victim was the flightless dodo bird, which is believed to have died out in the late 1600s.

Keep reading the news on Reuters page.

Do you remember the Dodo Expeditie Weblog? They are back with back. Or I rather say, they were back with the Dodo excavation 2007, because it ended in August 19th. The expedition was documented in a blog, as the previous one, with English and Dutch. The Dutch has a link the images of the new mascot Dido.

The expedition started with a fantastic new discover in its first day, July 29:

As soon as we set foot on Mauritius we headed for an excursion into the vast system of lavatunnels on the hilly side of the island. In the shadow of Julian Hume we entered a cave where speleologists discovered a complete dodoskeleton, only a month ago. This would be the first ever discovered in the Mauritian highlands. Soon it pointed out that also we would be lucky in the catacombs. In the smal chamber where the dodoskeleton was found Julain discovered the pelvis of the extinct Mauritian owl (Mascarenotus sauzieri)! Before this moment nobody knew this part of the postcranial skeleton of this species, it simply never was found. The Mauritian owl was the size of a forest owl, but had much bigger paws to kill reptiles. A most important find. How did the dodo and the owl ended in the cave, and how did they enter? Questions that immediately came to our minds and that we hopefully can answer with future research.

There are more information (and images) about this last expedition on their weblog posts. Check also the links on the main page of the expedition, including the Research plan. But before, a couple of Dido images:

Dodos just in the name, but since it’s about extinction is interesting: ‘Dodo atlas’ helps to put extinction of species on map from Times Online:

AN ATLAS of the world’s extinction hot spots, in which at least one species is in imminent danger of dying out, has been drawn up by scientists to guide global conservation.

The map, prepared by researchers from the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE), pinpoints 595 clearly defined sites that provide either the only or major remaining habitat for an endangered or seriously endangered species. Only a third of the hot spots are currently protected as conservation areas, and most are surrounded by large human populations that are threatening their future. [...]

Taylor Ricketts, a scientist from the World Wide Fund for Nature, the environmental charity, who led the research, said: “We now know where the emergencies are: the species that will be tomorrow’s dodos unless we act quickly. The good news is we still have time to protect them.”

In the study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Dr Ricketts’s team used the World Conservation Union’s “red list” of threatened species to pick out mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and conifers that are acutely endangered and have a very narrow geographical range.

The research threw up 595 sites as priority hot spots, in which one or more species — 794 in total — is in danger and exists nowhere else in significant numbers. There are particular concentrations of hot spots in the Andes of South America, the Atlantic forest region of Brazil, the Caribbean and Madagascar. Mexico has the most hot spots, with 63, while there are 48 in Colombia, 39 in Brazil and 29 in Indonesia. [...]

An old news, from when they discovered that the Extinct Dodo Related to Pigeons, DNA Shows:

The dodo, poster bird for species extinction, has a pitiful reputation as a stupendously overweight idiot of a bird that couldn’t even fly. But scientific evidence is slowly correcting that impression. Its new rep: an evolutionary success, perfectly adapted to its living conditions, thin and relatively fast, but still an early victim to the spread of man. [...]

The adaptations the dodo made for island living—flightlessness and gigantism—have made understanding its evolutionary history and classifying it based on body characteristics difficult. Over the years, the dodo has been grouped with the carnivorous raptors; ratites, which include emus and ostriches; parrots; and shorebirds. Since the mid-1800s, the dodo has been classified as part of the family that includes pigeons and doves. But there has been no hard proof.

Molecular analysis of DNA retrieved from a dodo specimen at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, England, confirms that the bird belongs firmly in the middle of the pigeon tree in evolutionary terms, reports a study published in the March 1 issue of the journal Science. Its closest living relative is the Nicobar pigeon, which lives in the Nicobar Islands and Southeast Asia, and it is part of a group of large island-dwelling birds that spend a great deal of time on the ground. Other modern representatives include the crowned pigeons of New Guinea and the tooth-billed pigeon of Samoa. [..]

“Island taxa such as the dodo and solitaire often represent extreme examples of evolution—and if we want to examine how we, or the life around us, evolved then such animals are very educational,” said Alan Cooper, a zoologist at the University of Oxford and one of the co-authors of the study. “By examining island birds we can investigate how evolution works—because extreme examples are often the best views of how something works.”

Earlier scientists had speculated that the dodo, and its closest relative, the also-extinct solitaire, descended from migratory African pigeons that got lost and colonized the islands. The genetic evidence clearly shows that the dodo and solitaire came from southeast Asia, where all their close relatives remain.

The Oxford scientists can’t tell when the dodo arrived on Mauritius, or when it became flightless. Geological evidence indicates that the island was created as a result of volcanic activity and emerged from the water about 8 million years ago. Whether the birds flew, swam or hitched a ride on floating debris like trees or clumps of seaweed, remains unknown. The DNA evidence does indicate that the dodo and the solitaire separated from a common ancestor about 25.6 million years ago. The common ancestor separated from other Southeast Asian birds around 42.6 million years ago.

It’s an excellent, but a bit long article to post. Check it all here.

All from Dodo’s in Noorderlog, that has some dodo news in Dutch.

A New York Times‘ article from July about the new expedition to explore Mauritius’ sites: Newfound Island Graveyard May Yield Clues to Dodo Life of Long Ago:

The origins of the dodo are mysterious. Studies on its DNA indicate that it descended from pigeons. The dodo’s closest relative was the solitaire, another extinct flightless bird that lived only on the nearby island of Rodrigues. [...]

Plant-eating mammals play a major role in shaping their ecosystems. Dodos may have thinned the Mauritius forests, and some plants may have come to depend on them to spread their seeds.

With almost no fossils to study, scientists had been unable to test these ideas. Now it will be possible, thanks to the discovery of the dodo graveyard. Dr. Rijsdijk and Frans Bunnik, also of the Geological Survey of the Netherlands, found it almost by accident. [...]

Based on the underlying geology of the site, Dr. Rijsdijk estimates that it is 3,000 years old. More precise dating based on carbon isotopes is now under way.

Dr. Rijsdijk said that the fossils appeared to have formed in a forest lake. A big storm may have washed the animals and plants into the lake, where their bones settled into a single layer.

“Think of it like a snapshot,” Dr. Burney of Fordham said. “You set up a big camera and photograph the landscape at a particular instance. You’ve got the dodos and the other species, all captured in a moment.”

The scientists are now studying the material more carefully. Some are looking for ancient DNA, while others will analyze the dodo bones to get clues to their diet. “We may be really be able to shine a light on the dodo’s role in the ecosystem,” Dr. Rijsdijk said. The scientists will present early findings at the University of Oxford in September and will return to Mare aux Songes in 2007.

By understanding the Mauritius ecosystem before humans arrived, they hope to find clues to the dodo’s extinction. Dodos were easy to hunt, but hunting alone probably did not wipe them out. Recent research indicates that the early Dutch settlers rarely ate dodo meat. Nor did the deforestation of the island doom the dodo. Major forest clearing did not begin until after the dodo became extinct.

BTW, use Firefox and the bug me not extension to read the article if you don’t want to create an account there.

From Scientific American an interesting article about birds and dodos too: Bird Extinction Estimates May Be Too Low.

Since 1500, more than 150 bird species have disappeared from the world, including the much lamented dodo. This ground bird disappeared from its island home before Carl Linnaeus, the father of scientific taxonomy, even described it in the 18th century. Given that many of the nearly 10,000 known bird species have only recently been described–including those only available from remains like the dodo–some biologists suggest that current extinction rates have been seriously underestimated and will rise rapidly in the coming century.

Stuart Pimm of Duke University and his colleagues analyzed current estimates of bird extinction rates. Out of 9,975 known bird species, 154 have disappeared, or roughly 1.3 percent. Extrapolated, this yields an estimate of 26 extinctions per million bird species every year. Based on fossil records, scientists estimate that normal extinction rates average just one lost animal for every million species per year.

Read the whole article here.

From Reuters: Scientists say dodos killed by natural disaster. Scientists who unearthed a mass dodo grave in Mauritius say they have found evidence showing the birds were killed by a natural disaster long before humans arrived on the Indian Ocean island.

“There are indications that the fossil-rich layer represents the result of natural disaster wiping out a significant part of the Dodo-ecotope,” a statement by the researchers said.

While the latest find does not disprove the human theory, the scientists are convinced there was a mass dodo death, possibly caused by a cyclone or flood, pre-dating the arrival of humans, Christian Foo Kune, owner of the site, told Reuters.

“The fact that there are such a wide range of animals there, small and big ones, suggests that there was a sudden natural disaster,” Foo Kune said. “The mass grave also shows no domestic animals, so it is prior to the arrival of man.”

The bones were thought to be at least 500 years old, he added. “We could be talking about a cyclone or repeated cyclones, flooding or a sudden rise in (sea) water levels that trapped the animals there,” he said.

That’s an extract of the article, which is very interesting indeed. But who am I going to blame now?

Update: Reuters removed the article’s page, and I removed the broken link.

From BBC News Dodo skeleton find in Mauritius: Scientists say they have discovered part of the skeleton of a dodo, the large, flightless bird which became extinct more than 300 years ago.

“It’s a wonderful collection,” said Dr Julian Hume, a research associate with London’s Natural History Museum and a member of the largely Dutch-Mauritian team.

“The chances of a single (intact) bone being preserved [would be] a remarkable event; and here we have a whole collection of them,” the Reuters news agency quoted him as saying.

Dr Hume said previous bones had been plucked out in a haphazard way, with little attention given to adjacent dodo fossils or clues about the birds’ environment.

The find includes a complete hip and four leg bones (femur, fibula, tibiotarsus and hypotarsus). Numerous other dodo parts were also unearthed, such as skull fragments, beak bones, vertebrae, wing bones and toe bones.

The same news can also be read at ABC News with a different text or in your favourite journal, since I saw that this is in everywhere. Read also those “old” news, also from BBC: Scientists pinpoint dodo’s demise. Dodos for everybody!

PS.: Thanks to Chris and Jaime for having remembered my dodo blog and sent me the link.

Update: the ABC News link is no longer available, so I removed it.

RNW: The dodo hunters by Marnie Chesterton: An international team of scientists are, as I write this, standing in a swamp in Mauritius, looking for dodo bones. They have gone out to excavate a mass dodo grave, uncovered in November by a team of Dutch scientists, led by geoscientist Dr Kenneth Rijsdijk.

Dodos’ extinction continues to have impacts. In 1973, a scientist suggested that the Mauritian tree, the Calvaria or Tambalacoque, was dying out because it had entrusted its reproductive future with the dodo. Seeds from the tree needed to pass through the gut of the dodo before they would sprout.

The Calvaria, a hardwood species, were able to survive for 300 years without the bird but nearly went the same way as the dodo. An ornithologist came to the rescue with turkeys. Seeds from the last 13 trees were fed turkeys, and were suitably digested to start growing into seedlings. However the science behind this story, like so many stories that surround the dodo, is considered unreliable.

Yes, the same news of other days, but her text is very good there are some interesting additional information, – as you can see above -, images and an audio interview (link at the beginning at the text as Real audio or Windows Media).