DODO

Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) is a bird can not fly that ever lived on the island of Mauritius. This bird related to pigeons. This bird has a height of about one meter, eating fruit and nested on the ground.

Dodo became extinct between the mid-to late-17th century. Extinction is often used as an archetype because it occurs in human history and as a result of human activity.

Etymology

Not clear where the word dodo come from. May be associated with dodaars, Dutch for duck kind. There is a relationship between the two because of the similarity in the leg feathers or because the two animals are stiff. However, the Dutch are also known to refer to birds of Mauritius with walghvogel (birds that make the nausea) because it tastes. The last name was first used in the journal of the admiral Wybrand van Warwijck who visited and gave the name of Mauritius in 1598. Dodo or re-recorded in the journal Dodaerse captain Willem van West-Zanen four years later, but it is unclear whether he was the first to use the name, since before the Dutch, the Portuguese had visited the island in 1507, but did not settle.

According to Encarta Dictionary and Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, "dodo" comes from the Portuguese doudo (now doido) means "stupid" or "crazy". However, the Portuguese term for the bird now, dodo, derived from English. Doudo word or doido in Portuguese language itself is likely to come from the old English language ("dolt"). Doubt that the origin of the word of Portuguese is also due, in Portuguese, a name formed from the repetition of two syllables sounded childish.

Another possibility is that the dodo is a bird onomatope of the sound itself, the sound of a dove-like 'doo-doo'.

Biology

Morphology and inability to fly

In October 2005, part of the Mare aux Songes, the most important of the relics of the dodo, moved by a team of international researchers. Many relics were found, including bones of birds with different maturity, and some of the bone is clearly derived from the skeleton of a bird and stored in its original position. This finding was performed in public in December 2005 in the Naturalis museum in Leiden. Previously, some specimens are associated with the dodo was known, consisted mostly of scattered bones. Natural History Museum in Dublin and at Oxford University, among others, have drawn from specimens that are not related to this heritage. Dodo eggs exhibited at the Museum of East London in South Africa. Until now, the most complete relic, which was shown at the Museum of Natural History at the University of Oxford, a partial leg bone and the head which contains only the soft body parts that still exist of this species.

The remainder of the dodo last saved in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, but in the middle of the 18th century, the specimen was completely broken and ordered to be discharged by the curator or museum director about the year 1755.

In June 2007, the adventurers are exploring a cave in the Indian Ocean discovered dodo skeleton the most complete and best preserved than others so far.

From the picture of the artist we know that the dodo have grayish feathers, beak along the 23 cm with the tip bent, the wings are very small, solid yellow legs, and curly hair tuft at the tip behind. Dodo is a very large bird, weighing about 23 kg. Sternum can not support it to fly; birds that live in this land ecosystems evolved with the use of the island of Mauritius who do not have creatures that can eat it.

Traditional image of the dodo bird is a fat and clumsy, but this view has been challenged now. The general opinion of scientists now is that the old painting shows specimens captured and fed too much. Since Mauritius has a dry and wet seasons, the dodo likely fatten themselves with ripe fruit at the end of the rainy season to be able to survive through the dry season when food scarce; contemporary reports mention this bird has the appetite of "greedy". Thus, in the arrest, would be very easy to have most meals.

Food

Tambalacoque tree, also known as the "dodo tree", hypothesized Stanley Temple has been eaten by the Dodo, and only through the digestive dodo seed fruits can be grown; he asserts that tambalacocque now nearly extinct in the absence of the dodo. He insisted that seventeen fruits are eaten by wild turkey and three of them could germinate. In his study, Temple did not attempt to grow the seeds of other fruits as the control is not given to the turkey so the impact of the provision of fruit to the turkey so it is not clear. Temple also did not pay attention to reports of research on seed germination tambalacoque by A. W. Hill 1941 and H. C. King in 1946, which found that the seed can grow, though very rarely, without abrading.

Extinction

Dodo is a bird that is not afraid of humans, and plus his inability to fly, making it an easy prey captured. People who eat birds landed in Mauritius this. However, many journals reported dodo bad taste and the meat is hard, while other local species such as the Red Rail tasty. Generally believed that Malay sailors appreciate this bird and kill it just to use it as a headdress in religious ceremonies. The first humans came to Mauritius to bring new animals, like dogs, pigs, cats, rats and crab-eating macaques that destroyed the dodo nests, while humans destroyed the forests where the dodo lived. Now, the impact of these animals - especially pigs and monkeys - the extinction of the dodo considered more influential than the effect of hunting. The expedition of 2005 found many animals that die from flooding. Mass mortality thus further complicate the already endangered species.

Although many reports of mass killings dodo for food supplies in the ship, archaeological discoveries hitherto lacked evidence of the existence of these birds that prey on humans. At least two bones of a dodo found in a cave in the Baie du Cap which is used as a shelter fugitive slaves and convicts in the 17th century, but because it was isolated in altitude, the area was difficult to reach by the dodo.

There is controversy surrounding the extinction of the dodo. Robert and Solow stated that "the extinction of the Dodo is at last visible in 1662, as reported by Volkert Evertsz sailor" (Evertszoon), but many other sources suspect it happened in the year 1681. And Robert Solow showed that because of the dodo was last seen before 1662 was in 1638, the dodo is probably already very rare in 1660an. Statistical analysis of hunting records Issac Johannes Lamotius provide a new estimate in 1693, with a confidence level of 95% from 1688 to 1715. Consider other evidence such as reports of travelers and not of good reports after 1689, like the Dodo became extinct before the year 1700; so, the last Dodo died only a few centuries after the discovery of the species in 1581.

Initially only a little attention to this extinct bird. At the beginning of the 19th century, this bird is considered as a strange creature, and many regard it as just a myth. With the discovery of a series of dodo bones at Mare aux Songes and the reports made by George Clark began in 1865, interest in birds began to grow. In the same year with the start of publication of Clarke, the new bird species was used as one of the characters in the story Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll's work. With the popularity of the book, the dodo so widely known and easily recognizable as an icon of extinction.