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.

From the Center for Biological Diversity: “Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne Wins 2007 Rubber Dodo Award.” This is the first time they celebrate it, and it was a deserved victory: Kempthorne Surpasses James Watt By Protecting Fewer Endangered Species Than Any Interior Secretary in History.

Since his confirmation as secretary of the interior on May 26, 2006, Kempthorne has not placed a single plant or animal on the federal endangered species list. The last listing (12 Hawaiian picture-wing flies) occurred on May 9, 2006 — 472 days ago. The previous recordholder was James Watt, who listed no species for 376 days between 1981 and 1982.

Watt’s refusal to list species resulted in a 1982 congressional amendment to the Endangered Species Act, which established firm timelines for listing species and litigation consequences for violating the deadlines. Kempthorne’s refusal prompted Ed Markey (D-MA) to introduce H.R. 3459, the “Transparent Reporting Under ESA Listing Act,” on August 4, 2007. It would amend the Endangered Species Act to require the secretary to explain the scientific basis of decisions to deny Endangered Species Act protections to imperiled plants and animals.

“Kempthorne is eminently deserving of the first annual Rubber Dodo award,” said Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for Biological Diversity, which administers the award. “His refusal to protect a single imperiled species in more than 15 months gives him the worst record of any interior secretary in the history of the Endangered Species Act. His policies should go the way of the dodo as soon as possible.”

“Political appointees like Kempthorne come and go, but extinction is forever. No politician has the right to destroy the future of an endangered species.”

It’s not easy do that, he must have had a hard work and I would like to congratulate him for being such a jerk.

The Sydney Morning Herald from Reuters: Missing bird species rediscovered.

A bird species that has not been seen since the remains of one were found in India 140 years ago is alive and living in Thailand, scientists say.

The live Large-billed Reed-warbler was found by chance by ornithologist Philip Round as he was putting identification tags on wild birds at a water treatment plant near Bangkok last year.

“Although reed-warblers are generally drab and look very similar, one of the birds I caught that morning struck me as very odd, something about it didn’t quite add up; it had a long beak and short wings,” he said in a statement.

“Then, it dawned on me – I was probably holding a Large-billed Reed-warbler. I was dumbstruck, it felt as if I was holding a living dodo,” he said.

(Thanks Arbee!)

After Bones Could Yield Dodo DNA, the same news at Stuff.co.nz: The remains of a dodo found in a cave beneath bamboo and tea plantations in Mauritius offer the best chance yet to learn about the extinct flightless bird, a scientist has said.

Update: Unfortunately the link to the news was removed.

From LiveScience Bones Could Yield Dodo DNA: A newly discovered dodo skeleton has raised hopes for extracting some of the legendary extinct bird’s DNA.

Fred the dodo

Late last year, biologists looking for cave cockroaches accidentally discovered a dodo skeleton in the highlands of Mauritius.

Nicknamed “Fred” after one of its discoverers, the skeleton’s bones were badly decomposed and fragile, but there is still a good chance of extracting some dodo DNA because of the stable temperature and dry to slightly humid environment (keys to DNA preservation) of the cave.

(Scientists think Fred ended up in the bottom of the cave because he sought shelter from a violent cyclone but fell down in a deep hole and could not climb out.)

Dodo DNA would be of great scientific value because scientists know very little about the genetics of the dodo. Also, it would allow scientists to figure how long the skeleton was lying in the cave.

Keep reading on LiveScience.

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:

My knowledge of Russian is null, but I think that this article talks about dodos and their life in Mauritius. The translator didn’t help, so let’s post the pretty images of dodos.

Update: Guess what? The page was removed. I’m glad I saved those 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. [...]

BBC h2g2 article – The Dodo – an Extinct Bird:

In the age of exploration man discovered wonderful creatures on every beach on which he landed. One of the creatures they found was the Dodo. We never found out what the bird was good for, as in our attempts to exploit them we managed to kill them all. This is a sad story; let’s not let it happen again.

The Dodo

The bird was known by the common name ‘Dodo’, plural either ‘Dodos’ or ‘Dodoes’, alternative name ‘Dronte’. Perhaps the name is derived from:

* Dod-aarsen: stupid ass
* Dodors: from dot-ors, meaning tuft of feathers-tail
* Dodars: silly birds
* Dodoor: sluggard

Also used were:

* Walgvogel or Walghvogel: nauseating bird (these are all Dutch- and German-based names)
* Doudo or Doudou: foolish and simple, simpleton (as the Portuguese and Spanish visitors called them) [...]

How to Prepare a Dodo for Dinner

Trying to find the perfect recipe we killed the last bird.

1. Pluck the feathers.
2. Put it in a water-filled pan and let it boil for a day – or two for older birds.
3. Then use a sharp knife to get some of the meat from the bones.
4. Serve with some fruits (mango) to make it taste like something. Keep a few toothpicks to clean your teeth after every bite.
5. Instead of only eating the flesh, you can also make a nice soup with the boiling water.
6. Give the remainder (probably most of the animal) to the dogs.

What else to serve these hungry, hardworking sailors?

If not eaten, dodos were just happy running or staggering around their island4. With their specialised long, crooked, and hooked beak, they ate fruits, seeds or nuts. Dodos seemed to eat stones and rocks as well, and perhaps some fruits de mer5. They did not have any natural enemies. The nests in which they laid their eggs were just clearings on the ground that were covered with grass. The female dodo laid a single, big egg hidden deep in the forest. She would use her large beak to defend herself and her chick.

Dodo dinner? Well, the records show dodos didn’t taste like chicken, so the dodo dinner looks more a joke that a real recipe (the description too). Anyway, there are more about dodos in the article.