Dodos are known for their delightfully gormless representations and their name has come to mean things like “dolt” and “boofhead.” However, it appears that the dodo’s predicament more accurately exemplifies victim blame.
Researchers from the UK are trying to dispel the myth that dodos were slow and foolish after reading 400 years of literature. According to Neil Gostling, a paleobiologist at the University of Southampton, “evidence from bone specimens suggests that the Dodo’s tendon which closed its toes was exceptionally powerful, analogous to climbing and running birds alive today.” “The dodo was almost certainly a very active, very fast animal.” A significant portion of our first knowledge on the renownedly extinct species comes from fractured remnants, artist portrayals, and rumor from Dutch mariners. Their peculiarities along with their quick disappearance caused them to be written off as fantastical beings from mythology for many years.
“More has been written about the Dodo than any other bird, yet virtually nothing is known about it in life,” explains avian paleontologist Julian Hume from the Natural History Museum in the UK.
For centuries, even the number of dodo species was up for debate. Examining collections from around the UK as well as written records, University of Southampton evolutionary biologist Mark Young and colleagues have sorted through this taxonomic confusion.
Their analysis verified that the columbids, or members of the pigeon and dove family of birds, that humans have long utilized for their special intelligences are the solitary species of dodo (Raphus cucullatus) and its closest relative, the Rodriguez solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria).
This group of birds has shown that they are capable of using touch screens and have a feeling of self in addition to their incredible abilities as messenger pigeons. “The few written accounts of live Dodos say it was a fast-moving animal that loved the forest,” claims Young. This stands in stark contrast to the idea of an easily fooled ‘unfit’ animal that stumbled into its own certain death. “These creatures were perfectly adapted to their environment, but the islands they lived on lacked mammalian predators,” Gostling states. “So, when humans arrived, bringing rats, cats, and pigs, the Dodo and the Solitaire never stood a chance.”
For the dodos and their eggs to become extinct on the island of Mauritius, it took almost 70 years for all these newcomers to arrive. The rare ground dove was last seen in 1662, according to records. The swan-sized solitaire suffered the same demise by 1770.
Since then, the same events have repeatedly taken place. When faced with humans and the invasive species we bring with us, many wildlife suffer, from the highly intelligent but endangered kea parrot to the world’s rarest insects and the extinct thylacine. This is a process that is currently contributing to Earth’s sixth mass extinction.
Currently, humans have imported non-native predators that pose a threat to about 600 species. “The Dodo was the first living thing that was recorded as being present and then disappeared,” Gostling claims. “Before this, it hadn’t been thought possible for human beings to influence God’s creation in such a way.” These presumptions have enabled humans to cause our living planet immense harm. We didn’t know what we were doing when we exterminated the dodo, but we certainly do today. We now understand that our combined might can even change the planet’s physical characteristics.
The review conducted by Young and crew is just the start of a larger project to find out more about these extinct animals. “Our research could help save today’s endangered birds too—we are not just looking back in time,” says Markus Heller, a biomechanical engineer at the University of Southampton.
