What Kind Of Animal Was The Now Extinct Dodo?

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Birds

i Dodo

Conservation condition

Extinct (1681)

Scientific nomenclature

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Gild:	Columbiformes
Family:	Raphidae
Genus:	Raphus Brisson, 1760
Species:	R. cucullatus

Binomial name

Raphus cucullatus
Linnaeus, 1758

Former range (in reddish)

The Mauritius Dodo (Raphus cucullatus, called Didus ineptus by Linnaeus), more unremarkably merely dodo, was a metre-high (three-foot) flightless bird of the island of Mauritius. The dullard, which is now extinct, lived on fruit and nested on the ground.

Dodo biological science

Dodo reconstruction reflecting new research at

Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Taxonomy and evolution

The dullard is a shut relative of modern pigeons and doves. DNA sequence analysis suggests that the dodo's ancestors diverged from those of its closest known relative, the Rodriguez Solitaire (which is too extinct), nigh 25 million years ago, in the deserts of the heart due east; these birds reached their impressive size as a event of the subsequent isolation of their desert homes in accordance with Foster'due south rule. The same written report suggested that the Southeast Asian Nicobar Pigeon is the closest living relative of the dullard and the Rodriguez Solitaire. However, the proposed phylogeny is questionable as regards the relationships of other taxa and must be considered less than reliable pending further research; all that can be said with certainty is that the ancestors of the didine birds were pigeons from Southeast Asia, which agrees with the origin of most of the Sahara's birds. Whether the dodo and Rodriguez Solitaire were really closest to the Nicobar Pigeon amongst the living birds or whether they are closer to other groups of the aforementioned radiation such as Ducula, Treron or Goura pigeons, the proposed relationship to the Nicobar Pigeon being an artifact of long co-operative allure, is not clear at the moment.

Morphology and flight

In October 2005, an important site of dodo remains was found by Dutch researchers in Mauritius, including birds of various stages of maturity. These findings were made public in December 2005 in the Naturalis in Leiden. Earlier this find, few dodo specimens were known. Dublin'south Natural History Museum had an assembled specimen, while the about intact remains from a single bird are a skeletal foot and a head, which contains the only known soft tissue remains of the species.

The decaying remnants of the terminal complete stuffed dodo, in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, was ordered to be burned by the museum'due south manager in 1755; the foot and head were salvaged from this specimen, and are currently on display. All the same, from artists' renditions we know that the Dodo had blue-grey plumage, a 23-centimetre (9-inch) blackish hooked bill with a ruby-red bespeak, very small wings, stout yellow legs, and a tuft of curly feathers high on its rear end. Dodos were very large birds, weighing well-nigh 23 kg (50 pounds). The breast construction was insufficient to have ever supported flying. These basis-bound birds evolved to take reward of an isle environmental with no predators.

The traditional image of the dodo is of a fat, clumsy bird, but this view has been challenged by Andrew Kitchener, a biologist at the Royal Museum of Scotland (reported in National Geographic News, February 2002), who believes that the old drawings showed overfed captive specimens. Every bit Mauritius has marked dry out and moisture seasons, the dullard probably fattened itself on ripe fruits at the end of the wet flavour to live through the dry flavor where food was scarce; contemporary reports speak of the birds' "greedy" appetite. Thus, in captivity with nutrient readily available, the birds would go overfed very hands. It had lived for thousands of years on Republic of mauritius without any predators, being the largest creature then on the isle (Mauritius had no native inhabitants).

Nutrition

The Tambalacoque, also known every bit the Dodo tree, was hypothesized by Stanley Temple to have been eaten from by Dodos, and but by passing through the digestive tract of the Dodo could the seeds germinate. Temple (1977) force-fed seventeen tambalacoque fruits to Wild Turkeys and three germinated. Temple did non try to germinate whatsoever seeds from control fruits non fed to turkeys so the effect of feeding fruits to turkeys was unclear. Temple also disregarded reports on tambalacoque seed germination by Hill (1941) and Rex (1946), who institute the seeds germinated without abrading.

Dodos and humans

Etymology

The etymology of the word dullard is unclear. It may be related to dodaars, the Dutch name of the niggling Grebe or Dabchick. The connection may take been fabricated considering of similar feathers of the hind stop or because both animals were ungainly. However, the Dutch are too known to have called the bird the "walgvogel" ("loathsome bird") in reference to its gustatory modality. This last name was used for the first time in the periodical of vice-admiral Wybrand van Warwijck who visited and named the island Mauritius in 1598. Dodo or Dodaerse is recorded in helm Wilhem Van Westzanen's journal four years afterward, but it is unclear whether he was the get-go 1 to use this proper noun. Before the Dutch the Portuguese had already visited the isle. According to Encarta Dictionary and Chambers Lexicon of Etymology, 'dullard' comes from Portuguese doudo (currently, more ofttimes, doido) significant 'fool' or 'crazy'. Still, the present Portuguese proper name for the bird dodô ("dullard") is of English origin. The Portuguese word doudo or doido may itself be a loanword from Old English (cp. English 'dolt'). Yet another possibility, every bit author David Quammen has noted in his book Song of the Dullard, "that 'dodo' was an onomatopoeic approximation of the bird'south own call, a two-notation pigeony sound like 'doo-doo'."

Dodos and civilisation

The Dullard rampant appears on the Coat of arms of Mauritius. The Dullard is the symbol of the Brasseries de Bourbon, a popular brewer on Réunion Island. The Dodo is the symbol and mascot of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Bailiwick of jersey Zoological Park, founded by Gerald Durrell. The Dodo's significance equally 1 of the best-known extinct animals and its singular appearance has led to its use in literature and popular culture to symbolize a concept or object that volition or has get out of appointment, expressed in the expression "dead equally a dodo". It is also used by environmental organizations that promote the protection of endangered species. Recently, the Dullard is set every bit an example of the documentary Flock of Dodos highlighting the "evolution intelligent-blueprint circus".

Extinction

The cause of the dullard'southward extinction is non sure, but recent prove suggests that information technology was nearly wiped out past some natural disaster earlier humans arrived on the island, its population reduced and then severely that it brutal below sustainable levels.

As with many animals evolving in isolation from pregnant predators, the Dodo was entirely fearless of people, and this, in combination with its flightlessness, made information technology easy casualty. (The island was start visited by the Portuguese in 1507, simply the Dutch were the first permanent settlers on the isle.) However, when humans first arrived on Mauritius, they also brought with them other animals that had not existed on the island before, including sheep, dogs, pigs, cats, rats and monkeys, which plundered the Dullard nests, while humans destroyed the forests where they made their homes.

There is some controversy surrounding the extinction date of the Dodo. David Roberts states that "the extinction of the Dodo is commonly dated to the terminal confirmed sighting in 1662, reported by shipwrecked mariner Volkert Evertsz", only other sources suggest 1681.

Roberts points out that because the sighting prior to 1662 was in 1638, the Dodo was likely already very rare past the 1660s. However, statistical analysis of the hunting records of Isaac Joan Lamotius, carried out past Julian Hume and coworkers, gives a new estimated extinction date of 1693, with a 95% confidence interval of 1688 to 1715.

The last known Dodo was killed less than 100 years afterwards the species' discovery, and no complete specimens are preserved, although a number of museum collections incorporate Dodo skeletons. The most complete of these on display in the Oxford Natural History museum, England. A Dodo egg is on brandish at the Due east London museum in S Africa. Genetic fabric has been recovered from these and its analysis has confirmed that the Dullard was a close relative of pigeon species that are to be constitute in Africa and especially South asia.

Few took particular find of the extinct bird until it became featured every bit a character in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). With the popularity of the book, the Dodo became a household word: "as expressionless as a Dullard".

Source: https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/d/Dodo.htm

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