The Dodo Blog

One more nice page about dodos: Description of the Dodo bird (raphus cucullatus) from the Birds of Mauritius site. The page starts with the dodo “portrait” above and the Old Print of a Dodo:

The dodo was a flightless bird native only to the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. The dodo was a flightless member of the pigeon family. Fully grown dodos weighted about 23 kg (50 pounds). Around 1505 the Portuguese became the first Europeans to discover the dodo. By 1681 it had been driven to extinction by humans and the feral dogs, pigs, rats, and monkeys introduced by Europeans to Mauritius.

It talks a bit more about its history, the physical characteristics, natural history, including food habits, reproduction, habitat and behavior; and about the economic importance for humans, including the positive point and conservation, which means extinction. The “positive” description says:

The main purpose dodos served to humans, in the brief contact between the two species, was as food. The sailors frequently fed on wildlife from Mauritius while staying there, although it has been said that dodo meat was not particularly tasty. Still, they were hunted intensely, with sailors sometimes bringing back as many as 50 at a time. What they couldn’t eat right away they would salt and bring back with them. A few attempts were made to bring back a dodo alive. When this was successful, entrepreneurs would capitalize on the unique looks of the bird and tour the dodos around Europe, displaying them in cages and demonstrating how the dodo could “eat” stones. (Strickland and Melville, 1848) (Fuller, 1987)

I don’t want to copy all the text from the page, because it’s a good reference and I want people to visit it. The page also includes links to more dodo sites, scientific information, bibliography, and links to articles, included in the site. Almost all the articles were already blogged about here. I would like also to suggest their Images of the Dodo page.

Update: I removed all the links, since the whole site is gone and the links were broken.

Dodo by Robert Parkinson, on Sydney Morning Herald, tech icon section, March 19th 2007. Thanks for the image Arbee!

Dodo by Wandys

Blue dodo from the removed article Is Blu-ray going the way of the dodo bird? from Home Media Magazine.

Curious Beaks – John Player & Sons – Series of 50 (1929), uploaded by Mando maniac.

It’s a scene from the movie Ice Age, in which a pair of dodos keenly observes the fact that the last of the females have been killed. “Extinction of the Dodo” by E. Willoughby.

Tekening van dodo, Scheepjournaal ‘De Gelderland’ 1601-1603 from De Verdieping van Nederland. I don’t speak Dutch, but it seems this is one of the very rare drawings of a dodo made in Mauritius with a “live model”. The image is available to download as a “monster” tiff (122MB). (Thanks Paul)

Classics Illustrated 49: Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. ( via Free Comic Books)

Dodo by Rick Froberg (Thanks Suzanne!)

The vintage cover of this When the Do-Do Bird is Singing in the Coca-Cola Tree vintage sheet music for piano was kindly uploaded by Jerub Baal. (Thanks Pita!)