The Dodo Blog

It seems that the Dodo Expedition had a happy end: Discovery of lower body of Dodo, complete skeleton within reach.

Besides Dodo bones the research team recovered bones of the extinct giant tortoise (Cylindraspis) and bones of jet unidentified reptile and bird species. Also they encountered abundant seed material of endemic trees including those of the Tambalacoque (Dodo tree). A few specimens of this nearly extinct tree currently occur in the central part of Mauritius. It is therefore a great surprise that these seeds occur nearby the sea at Mare aux Songes. Mauritian and European scientists investigate how it is possible that so many bones and seeds have been so well conserved in the soil after several thousands of years and why the locality is so extremely rich in bone material.

The purpose of the current expedition is to reconstruct the world of the Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) before Western man set foot on the island of Mauritius and wiped out the species. The expedition will seek to clarify the Dodos ecotope and explain why it became extinct. The excavation in Mare aux Songes, in the south eastern tip of Mauritius will continue to the 3rd of July 2006.

The immediate reason for this expedition was the rare find on 28 October 2005 of a completely undisturbed layer of botanic remains and bones, including Dodo fossils, on the island of Mauritius. This material is up to 3000 years old. There have been previous 20th-century finds of Dodo bones on Mauritius, but no-one previously sought to study the geology or ecology of these sites. This type of research is needed to reconstruct the landscape, fauna and flora and establish whether these animals were wiped out all at once by a natural disaster. The Mascarene Islands, of which Mauritius is one, are unique in that they probably have the only Dodo-fossil sites in the world.

The expedition ended, but there are some interesting material about dodos in the site. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the English version of that part of the site and all the links goes to pages in Dutch. Doel van de expeditie talks (I think) about the expedition, the first dodo bone find in many time, in 2005, that inspired this new expedition and traces what could have been the dodo habitat.

Reconstruction of the dodo habitat at the time of the early Dutch colonisation of Mauritius, in the 17th century, by Julian Hume, 2005

From this Naturalis page go to explore other sessions about the expedition: who participated, site explored – Mare aux Songes, the techniques used at the lad to study the bones and an informative about the dodo.

At the informative page, the session Dodo fact sheet has more information about dodos, their habitat, dodos at museums, a brief history of dodos after the Netherlands colonization, dodo DNA and a dodo skeleton compared with a Roelant Savery painting:

And finally the Stuur uw dodo-foto’s in contains pictures of dodo’s skeletons from other museums: American Museum of Natural History of New York and The Natural History Museum of London.

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.

Dronte (Raphus cucullatus), Walgvogel (Didus ineptus), by Lorenz Oken, from Arbeiten über Lorenz Oken. BTW, Peter Bertau – Arbeiten über Lorenz Oken looks a great site for those that have any interest in ornithology.

For those that loved some “technical information” here are the dodo “specifications” from the Animal Diversity Web: Raphus cucullatus, A.K.A dodo, by Brittany S. Brown.

Behavior

The sailors who landed on Mauritius found much amusement in watching the clumsy dodo’s behavior. There is a story one told of watching a dodo attempt to escape in a hurry. When it tried to run away, (wobble may be a more accurate term), its belly would drag on the ground and slow him down. But for the most part, the dodo is described as a lazy, rather dumb animal. It had virtually no defenses against predators, except for its large beak which could deliever a “fearsome bite” if the occasion arose, such as a threat to itself or its young. (Fuller, 1987; Strickland and Melville, 1848)

After the news by journalists, the news by specialists, not so much different from the others, from the Natural History Museum: Bones will reveal life of dodo:

The new finds will help to piece together the environment the dodo lived in and will help us understand more about how it become extinct.

Scientists hope to find the first complete articulated skeleton of an individual dodo. This will help reveal how the dodo moved around, whether they walked with a waddle or hopped with a skip.

That’s probably not so big news to make you go to the site, so here it is more arguments: images of the dodo in their Picture Library, Dodo model at the birds gallery, and, as they suggest “Take a Dodo architectural tour. The last one was my favourite part. It doesn’t have many texts, however there are two short and amusing videos: The Dodo’s changing image, with an analysis of “Dodo expert Julian Hume” about the famous painting by Roelandt Savery, and The Dodo – The merging of myth and reality a great interview with Julian Hume made in 2003.

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.

Minaggio 76 – Although the bird is tentatively labelled Dodo? on the picture, this more likely represents a bustard being hunted by a mounted oriental gentleman with a scimitar. From Il Bestiario Barocco – Feather Book: Made in 1618 by Dionisio Minaggio, Chief Gardener of the State of Milan, the Feather Book consists of 157 collages of birds, hunters, tradesmen, musicians and Commedia del’Arte figures.

The 112 birds consist of the feathers, beaks and claws laid down in true-to-life fashion. The majority of the birds depicted were native to Lombardy although some are no longer common there. One of the birds is identified as being a representation of a Dodo – and indeed a web site on the dodo seems to accept this attribution without question. However, the bird is not particularly well drawn, uses Lombardy bird feathers rather than ones from an actual Dodo and is obviously copied from either a drawing or a description. I suspect it is done from an illustration because the costume and weapon of the Arabian hunter is so accurately depicted. Various other ornithologists who have seen the original have declared the bird to be either a Reunion Solitaire, which is at least a close relative of the Dodo, or a Great Bustard.

More about it at The Feather Book of Dionisio Minaggio. (Thanks Jaime!)

Old news (December 2005″) from BBC News: Scientists find ‘mass dodo grave’: Scientists have discovered the “beautifully preserved” bones of about 20 dodos at a dig site in Mauritius.

A team of Dutch and Mauritian scientists discovered the bones in a swampy area near a sugar plantation on the south-east of the island.

The bones were said to have been recovered from a single layer of earth, with the prospect of further excavations to come.

I think that they already started this New Dodo expedition. More about it in the previous posts: Scientists to dig up dodo data, Scientists on the hunt for how dodo died and Dodo Expeditie Weblog

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.