@extinctera.org: The sailors probably weren't the dodo's biggest problem. What came off their ships was. Dutch sailors first met the dodo (Raphus cucullatus) on the island of Mauritius in 1598. It was a flightless bird about a meter tall, weighing around 20 kilograms, that ate fruit and nested on the ground. Early accounts describe many of the birds as tame and easy to approach, which made them easy to catch. But the rapid decline was probably driven by the dogs, cats, rats and pigs the sailors brought with them. Those animals spread across the island, destroyed the dodo's habitat and ate its eggs. The last confirmed sighting of a dodo was in 1662. By the 1700s, it was considered extinct. Even the Oxford Dodo, the museum's most famous specimen and the only dodo soft tissue left anywhere in the world, had a twist. CT scans showed it had been shot in the back of the head and neck. A bird that didn't fear people was no match for the animals people brought with them. This is a model of a dodo at the Natural History Museum, London. Photo by Emőke Dénes (CC BY-SA 4.0), modified

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Wednesday 14 October 2026 14:05:07 GMT