The Dodo Blog

Here it is a very ironic Dodo T-shirt with a phrase Save the Dodo!. The site Purely Akademic Geek Shirts has other cool stuff, but what I really want now is one of that dodo T-shirts. Why we have so many taxes here? *Sight* (Thanks Xenmate!)

Update: it seems that the page to that T-shirt is no longer available. Too bad!

From the Dodo Expedition Weblog: Distressed dodo and first impressions, by Ranjith Jayasena and Beth Shapiro.

The Mare aux Songes excavation has resulted in an enormous amount of finds. The many bones need to be washed, photographed and catalogued. Therefore a part of the team is staying at the base processing the finds while the others are busy to get themselves dirty in the field. Today Julian went through the collection of bones uncovered by Kenneth, Frans and Pieter in the Mare aux Songes last October. Apart from dodos and tortoises the faunal assemblage proved to contain several other (extinct) species. By analysing animal bones we get to know the different species that lived at the Mare aux Songes, as well as the age and health of these animals. Among last year’s finds were two fused vertebra of a dodo. Although it is not possible to say whether the bird got this as a result of a disease or old age, we can be sure that it must have suffered.

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).

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.

From the ABC News Online Scientists on the hunt for how dodo died.:

Scientists in Mauritius have launched a project to discover why the giant dodo bird became extinct.

Most theories blame settlers who found the plump flightless bird on the Indian Ocean island in the 16th century and began to hunt it relentlessly.

In an attempt to provide a scientific answer, the Dodo Research Program plans to study fossils from a mass dodo grave unearthed in southern Mauritius last October and an adjacent site, using carbon dating techniques and DNA analysis.