Flightless Birds, Original Wild Facts

Wild Fact #686 – Gone But Not Forgotten – Dodo Bird

Photo from Wikicommons

Well here it is! Not only is it the last Flightless Bird Fact of the week but it is also the much anticipated Dodo Bird Wild Fact.  I promised you folks that I would write about this bird even though they are extinct.  I figured today would be a good day for the Dodo since they are a Flightless Bird and I like to write my facts for the special occasions.  Today just happens to be my brothers birthday and I thought the Dodo Bird would be fitting.  You know, since they are old and extinct.  Happy Birthday, Bro!

Even though the Dodo Bird has been extinct for over 300 years they are still one of the most popular bird species out there.  Heck, they even have their own expression named after them, “Dead as a Dodo”.  Not exactly the saying I would want to have named after me but at least they have one.  It is believed that the Dodo was related to modern-day pigeons and doves.  They were about a meter (3.3 feet) tall and weighed about 20 kg (44 lbs).  Obviously since they couldn’t fly they nested on the ground and would pluck the fruit from low lying bushes.  It sounds like they had a pretty good life so what went wrong?

Dodo Skeleton - Photo by Heinz-Josef Lücking (Wikicommons)

Well I will give you three guesses to the cause of their extinction and the first two don’t count.  Unfortunately, humans played a huge role in the demise of this awesome bird.  You see the Dodo grew up on the island of Mauritus (east of Madagascar) where it had no predators.  So when humans came over with their dogs, cats, pigs, rats and Crab-eating Macaques (Hey! That rhymes) the Dodo was fearless towards these new island inhabitants.  Naturally this fearless behaviour and their inability to fly lead to major population declines.  Apparently it was the pigs and Crab-eating Macaques (seriously, who brings monkey’s with them when they travel?) that did the most damage.  They raided their nests and destroyed the future.  To make matters worst Scientists have discovered mass mortality at the hands of flash floods.  This would have just compounded the problem.   Poor little guys didn’t stand a chance.

Dodo Bird Fast Fact – The common view of the Dodo Bird being a fat and clumsy animal has been challenged by researchers.  It is believed that the old drawings of Dodo Birds were that of captive, over-fed birds.  As well it is probable that the Dodo Bird fattened themselves up during the wet season in order to survive through the harsh dry season when food was limited.

So the Birthday Boy gets the Dodo Bird because even when he is old and extinct his memory will live on forever in the history books.  I hope all of you enjoyed the Flightless Bird Theme and especially the fact on the Dodo Bird.  I still love this bird for some reason.  Have a great weekend everyone!

17th Century Drawing of the Dodo Bird (Photo from Wikicommons)

8 Comments

  1. So since humans are responsible for wiping them out is it ethical to bring them back to life via cloning? Fuse DNA with a pigeon and implant the cloned embryo in the egg of a living relative.

    1. This is a great question, DutchDodoman!

      There is a great debate over the possibility of resurrecting extinct animals such as the Woolly Mammoth and the Dodo Bird. I believe in 2005 the Japanese had put the idea forth of creating a “Jurassic Park” type of scenario for such animals. I think it would be possible to fuse the DNA with the Nicobar Pigeon (closest living relative of the Dodo) and create a Dodo; however, the question is, should we?

      Personally, yes we messed up big time and caused these animals to go extinct but I think we are asking for trouble if we try to bring them back to life. I think it is too unpredictable to mess with nature like this. Where would these animals live? The world has changed and they haven’t evolved with it, how would this impact their survival? How would it impact native animals that have continued to evolve with the environment? I think there are just too many unknowns to try this at this time. Not to be cliché but two wrongs don’t make a right.

      Don’t get me wrong, I would absolutely love to see these animals alive but my selfish reasons is not proper justification. No doubt, we will see some sort of resurrection attempted since scientist are just too curious to see if we can actually do it. It would definitely be a major advancement in the scientific world which could be good but who knows at what costs. I guess we will find out when we get there and again, I do believe we will see it attempted in our lifetime.

      Thanks for such a thought provoking question. I would love to hear your take on this issue.

      Nathan

  2. Hello Nathan.

    Let’s take a look at foreign animals who were released on isolated islands, rapidly adapting and evolving uniquely per island. Not over the course of millions, thousands or even many hundreds of years, but much much quicker! Do you remember this experiment, was it with Poison Frogs? Can’t recall the details. So maybe if we’d give the Dodo a chance it could evolve with the environment too. Folks could keep ’em instead of chickens or Ostrichs, no space? Sacrifice a golf course here and there, or would this impact the native golfers too much? Just kidding!

    With exponential human population growth it may be better to leave the Dodo and nature alone, they might get fattened with corn and become a new McDonalds burger in an Eerie cloned animal meat factory future.

    The “Jurassic Park” type of deal, is it that different from current zoos? Tropical deforestation, killing Elephants for the Ivory, killing the Rhino for the horn because of an imaginary aphrodisiac etcetera. We are ruining other species, is it better to leave them be once extinct? What a sad fate for the Dodo, the Whale, Dolphins, … We can selfishly wipe them out & might selfishly bring them back to life for amusement purposes. Still, the Dodo could be kept instead of similar birds, modern pigeon milkers unite!

    Thank you so much for further exploration of this idea.

    1. Hey DutchDodoman!

      Glad to see a response from you. I was hoping to get your opinion on all of this. You raise a lot of great points and really highlight a lot of errors humans have made over the years.

      I find it interesting that you mentioned introducing new animals to isolated islands and having them evolve quickly. You are absolutely right that some stronger animals will evolve quickly. I find it interesting since it was the introduction of non-native animals that helped eradicate the Dodo Bird. I think this helps emphasize my point about the unknown when you bring something new into an ecosystem. If we put dodo birds, mammoths, etc. back into the environment, what will happen to that current ecosystem? It will cause other animals to become endangered/extinct?

      I loved your solution to the no space problem. I am sure the dodo birds would love the sand trap on the 16th hole…lol! You made another great point about how our society would likely exploit any new/old creatures we bring into our world. You do have me curious as to what the McDodo Bird would taste like.

      Again, you brought up so many great points in your last paragraph about zoos, deforestation, poaching, etc. We have done a lot of wrong in this world and have definitely disrupted the natural course of things. I think we only add to that problem if we start trying to bring these things back. I agree with you that it is a sad fate for the dodo, whales and dolphins. Instead of living in the past and trying to correct former mistakes I think we need to focus on the present. People need to realize that our actions have consequences and that wildlife/nature plays a major role in our lives. I think we would be much better off if we could become more aware and pro-active in preventing these types of reckless activities you mentioned instead of trying to correct our past mistakes. Let’s learn from them and move on into a brighter and more successful future.

      Again, thank you for such well thought out comments. I love this type of though provoking dialogue.

      Have a great day!

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