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Almost every story has sad chapters, and the story of modern dinosaurs is no exception. This next entry tells a sad tale with a warning. This is the tale of the Dodo, species name Raphus cucullatus.
A description of the Dodo is difficult because it is only known to modern science from fossil and subfossil remains along with a dried head and foot in the Oxford Museum of Natural history. This leaves us with written descriptions and drawings from the 17th Century, which vary considerably. What can be determined was that the Dodo was a large bird that was about 3 feet tall and a weight range of 23 to 39 pounds. It was certainly flightless. Most depictions of the Dodo illustrate individuals as having brownish-grey plumage, yellow feet, a tuft of tail feathers, a grey, naked head, and a black, yellow, and green beak. Sexual dimorphism existed in Dodos as males appear to have been larger than females. As for the hypothesized appearance of a living Dodo, the coin shows it quite well, though Dodos are now believed to be slimmer than this 46-year-old depiction shows. Though they were large birds, mechanical studies done on subfossil remains indicate that Dodos were actually quite fast runners. It is estimated that Dodos had a lifespan of around 21 years. It is thought that Dodos fed on fruits and other plant matter as it is known that they used gizzard stones to help digest their food. Dodos were members of the Columbiformes, which is the Pigeon and Dove family. Their main habitat was the coastal woodlands which existed in its era on the island of Mauritius, which was the only place in the world that Dodos were found.
We also know very little about the reproductive habits of Dodos. Since they were so large and that they evolved in the near total absence of predators, it is a virtual certainty that Dodos were ground nesters. Contemporary accounts state that Dodo pairs laid a single egg and had altricial young. It was originally thought that young Dodos took a long time to mature, but the total lack of infant and juvenile subfossils and fossils indicates that Dodos grew up rapidly.
Dodos are extinct because the most dangerous predator that the Earth has ever seen invaded their native Mauritius in the 16th Century. That predator is the human. Humans are the sole reason Dodos are extinct. While many people who have heard this story think that it was overhunting which killed off the Dodo, it now seems more likely that it was habitat loss that actually destroyed them. Before humans arrived, Mauritius was covered in woodlands, and the Dodo was a woodland animal. When humans arrived on Mauritius, they cleared almost all of the woodlands. Once the woodlands were gone, the Dodos had no food, no nesting grounds and no living space. Humans first colonized Mauritius in 1598. The last accepted sighing of a living Dodo was in 1662. In less than 100 years, humans had destroyed the entire species and an enchanting and distinct modern dinosaur was gone forever.
The Dodo has become an icon of human caused extinction, and it serves as a warning of what may happen to the Earth if we do not learn to live with nature instead of living against it. If we are not careful with our planet and the creatures that are forced to share it with us, the last extinction we may cause is our own. Let’s hope we learn the lesson of the Dodo before it’s too late.