The last specimen had died at the end of the seventeenth century
“Everyone knows the name of the dodo bird and associates it with an unfortunate, defenseless bird.” Robert van der Werf, director of Summers Place Auctions, explains. It is one of the greatest symbols of species extinction. Too heavy to fly, too big to run and too clumsy to escape, it’s the dodo. Endemic to Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, the dodo could have appeared there about 4 million years ago. A distant cousin of the pigeon family, it has the appearance of a bird with a beak, feathers, and wings, and is said to have lost its ability to fly due to the lack of predators on the island. It can measure one meter and weigh more than 20 kilograms. Learn about aye-aye, an endangered species
At the beginning of the 16th century, the first ships carrying the Portuguese flag landed in Mauritius. The archipelago soon became a trading center on the spice route. The dodo bird is easy prey for passing sailors. At this time, many forests are also cut down. Dogs, cats, rats, macaques arrive from boats… Dodo eggs are looted on the land. The dodo does not survive this access. The animal disappeared completely between the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century. It has become the symbol of Mauritius. At the Cannes Film Festival, there is a movie that imagines the return of the dodo. Back to the last 5 mass extinctions
