And with no predators to be feared from, flying was just an unnecessary waste of energy. Their size was merely a product of the abundance of food. Without significant predators and an abundance of food, they were living in an animal paradise.įrom an evolutionary point of view, the dodo’s size and inability to fly were just an adaptation to its environment. In less than a century humans have done what nature couldn’t do for millions of years.ĭodo birds inhabited the isolated island of Mauritius. The first written records of the dodo bird were by Dutch sailors in 1598, and the last dodo bird anyone has seen was in 1662. Because of this, the last sighting of 1662 is taken as the only credible source of the dodo extinction. Visitors to the island may have confused the red rail with the dodo, therefore the belief they weren’t extinct. However, according to Alfred Newton, a British ornithologist, after their extinction, the name dodo was transferred to the red rail, a different bird species from the island. Other written records also show sightings of dodo birds after 1662. According to Isaac Johannes Lamotius, and his hunting reports, the last dodo bird was seen in 1688. Several written records suggest they didn’t go extinct in 1662. There is a lot of controversy about the date of the dodo’s extinction. In less than a century from its discovery, the dodo bird was already extinct. Their extinction was not noticed right away, however, it did happen very quickly. They can be seen in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. In the early 17th century, several specimens were brought to Europe, however, it’s uncertain how many of them had survived.Īmong those specimens probably were the dried head and foot, the only soft tissues of a dodo bird we have today. The last sighting of a dodo bird, according to a written report by Volkert Evertsz, a shipwrecked mariner of the Dutch ship Arnhem, was in 1662. Final Thoughts When did the dodo bird go extinct?
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