We can draw inferences from preserved dodo skeletons, as well as from several exaggerated cartoon-style sketches or paintings that were popular in the 1600s. This difference in plumage could likely be explained by an annual molting pattern.ĭodos became extinct several hundred years before the advent of photography, so again, we have no conclusive evidence to support what dodos looked like. Dodos had stout, scaly yellow legs, with sharp talons on their three-toed feet.ĭodo feathers were described as being anything from black to a lighter shade of grayish-white.
Their undeveloped wings support the observations that they were flightless. Less than 100 years after these first sightings, what caused these hook-beaked flightless giants to disappear forever? Read on, as we attempt to piece together the reasons for one of the most famous examples of species decline ever recorded.ĭodos were tall, thickset birds, with long hooked beaks around 23 cm (9 in) long on their heads, which were gray and featherless. Later visitors to the island did not mention the unusual birds, a fact that historians use as a basis to judge when dodos became extinct.ĭutch sailors were the first to spot the “great quantity of foules twise as bigge as swans” in 1598, and later observations noted the birds’ trusting and serene nature when being approached and captured. The last recorded sighting of a dodo was by Dutch sailor Volkert Evertsz, who was shipwrecked on Amber Island, off the coast of Mauritius in 1662.
But how much do we know about when they became extinct, and is it even possible to accurately state when the last dodo on the planet died? Read on to learn what our research into these questions found out. With no records of living dodos beyond the end of the 17th century, they are one of the world’s best-known examples of an extinct species. “As dead as a dodo” is a familiar saying, used to indicate that a person or a situation has gone way beyond hope of revival.
0 kommentar(er)
