The dodo was made famous by a political satire in the book “Alice in Wonderland,” in which a dodo leads a “caucus race” in which the rules are hazy, contestants run in circles and everybody wins a prize. They believe the bird did not fear humans because it had no natural predators on Mauritius and had lost the ability to fly because it was so large: adults grew to around three feet and weighed around 50 pounds – far bigger than a pelican. Modern scientists understand the dodo more favorably. But re-creating a live bird from its DNA remains in the realm of science fiction, Rijsdijk said. Retrieving DNA means the dodo can be better placed in relation to other species. “We have found 700 bones including bones from 20 dodo birds and chicks, but we believe there are many more at the site,” said Kenneth Rijsdijk, a Dutch geologist from the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, who led the dig.ĭNA material from other dodos exists, but Rijsdijk said better samples could be retrieved from the latest find, estimated to be 2,000 to 3,000 years old. The last known stuffed bird was destroyed in a 1755 fire at a museum in Oxford, England, leaving only partial skeletons and drawings of the bird. No complete skeleton of a single dodo bird had ever been retrieved before from an archaeological site in Mauritius. The last recorded sighting of a live bird was in 1663.Īn international team of researchers said they found the bones of the bird on a sugar- cane plantation on the island of Mauritius off the east coast of Madagascar, and presented their findings at the National Museum of Natural History in the Dutch city of Leiden on Friday. The dodo was native to Mauritius when no humans lived there, but its numbers rapidly dwindled after the arrival of Portuguese and Dutch sailors in the 1500s. AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS – Scientists said they likely have found a complete skeleton of the long-extinct dodo bird.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |