The Dodo Blog

The dodo bird was in the main page of Desciclopédia, the Portuguese version of Uncyclopedia (a funny, and not trustful for sure, version of Wikipedia). It says: “December 1st – Dodô, endangered.”

There is no article for the dodo bird, just the main page for the word Dodô, which says about the dodo bird: Pássaro Dodô, um pombo anabolizado já extinto e ninguém se importa com ele, porque era feio e cagava pra caramba. (“Dodo bird, an anabolized extinct pigeon and nobody cares about him, because he was ugly and he used to s**t a lot.”)

Not nice or good enough, however the Uncyclopedia has an article about the Dodo bird, following the same funny-bizarre line:

Thought to be extinct, the Dodo was one of the most vicious bird ever to walk the face of the earth. When the first european settlers came to the Mauritius, they brought along with them livestocks like pigs, chicken and dogs. The pigs was quickly to find the dodo bird’s eggs to be very tasty.

This prompted the Dodo Attack of 1598 that killed all of the settler’s livestock but one chicken. Which was then auctioned and sold to Oscar Wilde’s great great grandfather for $5. The nutrition from that one chicken singlehandedly brought him back from the brink of death. Starving, the first settlers were then resorted to cannibalism, and ate their colleagues in this order: Teachers, pianists then peasants. The officials were spared to coordinate the killings.

When the next ship arrived in Mauritania, they were quickly besieged by the settlers, and were quickly defeated. They were up for the boilers until the captain suggested that the settlers hunt the dodo birds instead. It prompted the D’oh D’oh Act of 1601. In which the captain of the ship HMS Mauritanian Death was appointed leader of the settler and was given the task to eliminate the threat of the Dodo.

The Empire Strikes Back under the leadership of the captain, whose name was lost to the ages but the nickname Dundee. Unbeknownst to him, the dodos, who walks on land most of the time owns a secret X-Wing capabilities to fly of in a moment’s notice and divebombs any direct offensive the Empire’s men execute. The first and second waves resulted in 75% loss of troops on the HMS Mauritanian Death. Captain Dundee then escaped to the ship along with all the rest of the settlers and resorted to carpet bombing the mauritanian island, killing most of the dodo’s population, and decimating a large part of the forest which was then used by the French to conduct nuclear weapons demonstrations to sell bombs to the Arabs in 1975. Captain Dundee then commanding the roasting of every dodo beast left on the island and stuffed their skins with wood fillings. Two is known to survive to modern times. One of them was destroyed in order to conduct a DNA test. The only stuffed dodo left in this world was stolen in December 2005 from the Louvre and has not yet been recovered.

Today, the dodos are regarded to be extinct. And because the D’oh D’oh Act of 1601 is still in effect across the British empire, every found dodos are to be extinguished promptly to preserve the unity of the empire.

And that’s not the whole article, there are more if you are brave enough to read it.

Dodo is not dead! by Sassá. Awesome Elvis dodo.

From Cryptomundo: What Did A Dodo Look Like?

In line with a question during an earlier discussion about how might have the dodo really appeared, the famed artist and Hollywood special effects man Bill Munn [...] contacted me.

Munns wrote: “I have done scientific reconstructions of the Dodo (of how they may have looked) with all coloration based on actual descriptions and the head sculpted from a skull cast provided by the Harvard Museum of Natural History.”

The following reconstruction is what Bill Munns created of the dodo, and may be the closest thing we have to how a living dodo looked in the wild.

The following reconstruction is actually the picture you saw above. For a bit more about information about Munns visit his site.

Alice in Wonderland №10 by the fantastic Russian photographer Vladimir Clavijo-Telepnev. BTW, some parts of the site are NSFW (contain nudes). (via Bibi’s box)

Those are old news, but I didn’t share it here yet and the dodos were very pleased that she isn’t the vice president of USA. The dodos really don’t like her. And those were the news from the Center for Biological Diversity: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin Wins 2008 Rubber Dodo Award. Palin Has Sought to Remove Endangered Species Act Protection for the Polar Bear, Suppressed and Lied About State Global Warming Studies, and Denied That Global Warming Is Caused by Greenhouse Gas Emissions

“Governor Palin has waged a deceptive, dangerous, and costly battle against the polar bear,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Her position on global warming is so extreme, she makes Dick Cheney look like an Al Gore devotee.”

Palin has waged a deceptive public relations campaign, asserting that the polar bear is increasing. But many populations (including Alaska’s southern Beaufort Sea) are in decline and two-thirds (including all Alaska bears) are projected to disappear by 2050 by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Palin has repeatedly asserted that Alaska Department of Fish and Game scientists found fatal flaws in the sea ice models used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine the polar bear is threatened. When challenged, Palin refused to release the alleged state review. Independent scientists eventually obtained a summary through the federal Freedom of Information Act, revealing that Palin had lied: The state mammalogists concurred with the Fish and Wildlife Service determination that Arctic sea ice is melting at an extraordinary rate and threatens the polar bear with extinction.

“All global warming deniers are eventually forced to suppress scientific studies, and Palin is no different,” said Suckling. “To maintain her ludicrous opposition to protecting the polar bear in the face of massive scientific consensus, Palin stepped over the line to lie about and suppress government science.”

Palin has since filed a frivolous lawsuit against the Bush administration to have the threatened listing overturned. Meanwhile, the U.S. Geological Survey announced on September 16th that the 2008 summertime Arctic sea-ice melt was the second greatest on record, nearly matching the extraordinary melt of 2007.

“Palin’s insistence that Arctic melting is ‘uncertain’ is like someone debating the theory of gravity as they plunge off a cliff,” said Suckling. “It’s hopeless, reckless, and extremely cynical.”

The Dodo Skips Through History on Woot Shirt, designed by TGentry for Derby #73: Optimism. That’s a dodo T-shirt I want for sure.

Do-Do Bird by Tattoo Andy. BTW, that’s not the first dodo tattoo I found. There are more dodo fans that we can image. Maybe I need to have my own dodo tattoo.

Update: I think Andy is no longer working on Off the Map Tattoo, and that’s why his page was removed.

Handmade Dodo by SandraHealy. That great dodo was available on her Etsy.

This bird from the island of Mauritius could not defend itself against humans and their animals, and died out by 1681. This carving is 8 x 8 x 2 cm (3 x 3 x 1 inch).

I use knives and chisels, not a power carver, to finish shaping the basswood. This technique gives crisper details. It is sanded smooth, and an airbrush used to apply water-based inks, with some details being burned In. It is finished with 3 coats of water-based urethane, and signed and dated on the bottom.

She shared her process of creation on her set How I create my animals. I think I don’t need to mention I specially loved the pictures with the dodo. Here are some images from her set: (more…)

Detail from Big Baby Tiger and Dodo, and Mini Baby Tiger and Dodo, both by Heather, aka littlecabbage on Flickr.

Dodo And Boy Sculpture by Alena Wooten, via her deviantART page.

I had the pleasure of working with the incredible Vince Nguyen here at Blue Sky on this piece! This sculpture is based on his character he designed for a children’s book. (I’ll try scanning in the drawing I used to create this scupt) I must say, these talented folks I work with in the design dept. sure keep me busy with all these “SIMPLE” designs. Hard and time consuming to sculpt, but so fun nonetheless!

And from Vince Nguyen blog, Louis and The Dodo Sculpt:

So here’s a beautiful sculpt of Louis riding a dodo bird by Alena Wooten. The character was shown in a children’s book called Louis and the Dodo. It was one of my first children’s book years ago and it’s still one of my favorite books I’ve worked on. Alena is a super star sculptor at Blue Sky Studios and I jumped at the chance to get her to sculpt anything for me.

And finally the very cute illustration with the original characters from the book Louis & the Dodo by Mark Shulman, illustrated by Vincent Nguyen: