Rats and monkeys escaped from ships and posed a threat to Dodo eggs and chicks. However, humans were not the only predators. Its consumption became common and most appreciated by those living on the island. It seemed altogether too strange a creature, and many believed it a myth. This was partly because, for religious reasons, extinction was not believed possible, and partly because many scientists doubted that the Dodo had ever existed. First described by Vice Admiral Wybrand van Warwijck in 1598, it was extinct less than 100 years later (sailors' tales of the bird, coupled with its rapid extinction, made many doubt that the dodo. 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. observers commented on its diet of seeds, fruit, and probably tree roots. The last claimed sighting of a Dodo was reported in the hunting records of Isaac Johannes Lamotius in 1688. With no natural predators on the island of Mauritius, the Dodos ancestors. Slowly, the sanctuary that had sheltered the Dodo for millions of years was being destroyed, and the Dodo was getting rarer. So it was with lack of fears and child-like innocence that those birds greeted the first settlers, the Dutch, in 1598.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. 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. It went extinct by 1693, less than a century after the Dutch discovered. Due 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 dodo was a flightless bird about 3 feet (1 meter) tall that was native to the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.
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