![]() This systematic excavation followed successful prospecting a year earlier were they uncovered about 700+ Dodo bones (of both adult and baby Dodo bird). In Mauritius, a right turn from the Government House in Port Louis will bring you to the Dodo museum (Mauritius Institute), where old sketches and skeletons of the legendary bird are showcased.įrom 2nd June to 4th July 2006, a group of British, Dutch, and local researchers lead a dig at a swamp located south-west of the island in Mare aux Songes in the hope of discovering remains of the Dodo for the purpose of better understanding the Dodo's behaviour in an undisturbed environment. The British museum had a complete specimen in their collection up until the 18th century that was actually mummified (including skin etc). Museums all over the World have skeletons of Dodos but no museum, not even ones in Mauritius have a skeleton from a single Dodo. Grey in color, the dodo bird may have been a relative of the pigeon family. It seemed altogether too strange a creature, and many believed it a myth.Īccording to the Encarta Dictionary and Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, "dodo" derives from Portuguese doudo (currently doido) meaning "fool" or "crazy. ![]() This was partly because, for religious reasons, extinction was not believed possible, and partly because many scientists doubted that the Dodo had ever existed. Statistical analysis of these records by Roberts and Solow gives a new estimated extinction date of 1693.Įven though the rareness of the Dodo was reported already in the 17th century, its extinction was not recognised until the 19th century. ![]() The last claimed sighting of a Dodo was reported in the hunting records of Isaac Johannes Lamotius in 1688. Slowly, the sanctuary that had sheltered the Dodo for millions of years was being destroyed, and the Dodo was getting rarer. Rats and monkeys escaped from ships and posed a threat to Dodo eggs and chicks.ĭeer, pigs, goats, chickens, dogs and cats were all introduced to the island, each making the once “peaceful and easy” life of the Dodo a real struggle. However, humans were not the only predators. Its consumption became common and most appreciated by those living on the island. So it was with lack of fears and child-like innocence that those birds greeted the first settlers, the Dutch, in 1598. They were passive creatures even when approached by human visitors for the first time. The Dodo birds had no experience of any types of predators before the arrival of settlers in the island. This is how the fauna and flora of the island deteriorated including also the Dodo.ĭue to its short wings and bulky body the dodo could not fly or flee in the face of danger and as such the Dodo was a very easy prey. ![]() The latter thus had to find some food sources inland itself in order to feed themselves. The human population of Mauritius increased drastically -sailors, invalids, convicts and slaves came to settle on the island. Forests were destroyed in order to make way for imported crops such as sugar cane, rice, tobacco, indigo, vegetables and citrus trees, which were planted at the base of the mountains. The Dutch eventually decided to settle in Mauritius in 1634, and they built a fort near to the place where they had originally landed. The Portuguese rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, and thus became the first recorded Europeans to sail into the Indian Ocean. The small island of Mauritius remained uninhabited by man for thousands of years, apparently because the island is in the middle of the large Indian Ocean, and was not on a major sea route.Īccording to history, around 1000 AD Arabs were sailing and trading along the African coast as far south as Mozambique and the Comoros Islands, and they probably called on Mauritius, although there is no mention of it on their early maps.
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