The dodo (Raphus cucullatus) is an icon of conservation and a reminder of the destructive potential of humanity towards the natural world. But was this member of the pigeon family, endemic to the island of Mauritius, really daft, stupid and dumb as we have been taught to believe?
The world must reimagine the dodo, say scientists at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom. On August 16, they came out with an academic paper after going through 400 years’ worth of scientific literature and visiting collections around the UK.
The aim of the research was to correctly classify the dodo and its close relative, the Rodriguez Island Solitaire, which is also extinct.
According to a statement by the university, the researchers believe the popular idea of the dodo as a fat, slow animal, predestined for extinction is flawed.
“Even four centuries later, we have so much to learn about these remarkable birds,” the statement quoted lead author of the paper, Mark Young, as saying.
“Was the Dodo really the dumb, slow animal we’ve been brought up to believe it was? The few written accounts of live Dodos say it was a fast-moving animal that loved the forest.”
So strong was the image of the dodo as ‘dumb’ that in the 12th edition of his Systema Naturæ, the father of taxonomy Carl Linnaeus proposed a new genus and species for the dodo: Didus ineptus.
But Neil Gostling, supervising author of the paper, added that, “Evidence from bone specimens suggests that the dodo’s tendon which closed its toes was exceptionally powerful, analogous to climbing and running birds alive today. The dodo was almost certainly a very active, very fast animal.”
“These creatures were perfectly adapted to their environment, but the islands they lived on lacked mammalian predators. So, when humans arrived, bringing rats, cats, and pigs, the dodo and the solitaire never stood a chance.”
Lost doves
The scientists were also able to confirm through their work that both the dodo and the Rodriguez Solitaire were members of the columbid (pigeon and dove) family.
They went through all the literature on the dodo and Rodriguez solitaire encompassing hundreds of accounts dating back to 1598 and visited specimens around the UK, including the world’s only surviving soft tissue from the dodo, in the Oxford Museum.
“And finally, all analyses agree that the †Raphus + †Pezophaps subclade is a member of a wider clade composed of ground-dwelling island endemic pigeons (although its composition can vary, the genera Caloenas, Goura, and Didunculus are the most consistent close relatives,” the study reads.
Notably, the Nicobar Pigeon (Caloenas nicobarica), the only living member of the genus Caloenus, is found on the Nicobar archipelago which is part of the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar. It is classified as ‘Near Threatened’ in the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List and its numbers in the wild are declining, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature.
“Understanding its wider relationships with other pigeons is of taxonomic importance, but from the perspective of conservation, the loss of the dodo and the solitaire a few decades later means a unique branch of the pigeon family tree was lost,” said Gostling. “There are no other birds alive today like these two species of giant ground dove.”
The researchers noted that dodo had been extinct since extinct since the 17th century, although precisely when is still subject to debate.
“The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species has 1662 as the year last seen, with individuals considered to have been the last of the species killed on the islet of île d’Ambre in 1662,” the paper read.
“Dodos held an integral place in their ecosystems. If we understand them, we might be able to support ecosystem recovery in Mauritius, perhaps starting to undo the damage that began with the arrival of humans nearly half a millennium ago,” the university statement said.
The systematics and nomenclature of the Dodo and the Solitaire (Aves: Columbidae), and an overview of columbid family-group nomina was published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
Shambhu Kumar is a science communicator, making complex scientific topics accessible to all. His articles explore breakthroughs in various scientific disciplines, from space exploration to cutting-edge research.
