celebrity writers

World of the Dodo Birds Revealed

The Lost Ecosystem of the Extinct Dodo Bird is Being Reconstructed in Mauritius

Dec 13, 2006

A layer of fossils thought to be between 2000 and 3000 years old is telling scientists about the environment of the Dodo bird long before humans came to Mauritius.

Discovery of the Dodo bird.

In 1598, Portuguese sailors discovered the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean to the east of Madagascar. When the Portuguese arrived, Mauritius was home to the Dodo bird, a bird that lived nowhere else on earth. On that small island of only 1865 sq. km., Dodo birds lived a safe and secluded existence. With no large predators to worry about, they lived and foraged for food on the ground – over the course of their evolution they had become large and flightless birds.

Extinction of the Dodo bird.

Mauritius was soon settled by the Dutch, who introduced new animals to the ecosystem. The tame defenseless Dodo birds were no match for the newcomers. With humans hunting them and pigs and monkeys competing for food and territory, their numbers dwindled drastically. Their eggs were probably eaten as well. Within two hundred years Dodo birds were extinct. At the time, their passing was of little interest – no one bothered to study the natural history of the Dodo bird, and very few specimens were preserved. The Dodo bird became a symbol of extinction, but a symbol without a background.

Discovery of Dodo ecosystem fossils.

The background, the natural history of the extinct Dodo bird is about to appear. It’s being reconstructed from a layer of preserved remains found in a 7-acre area of Mauritius. Scientists believe the 2000 to 3000 year old fossil bed formed at the bottom of a lake, possibly after a severe storm washed many animal and plant remains into the large body of water. Fossils found so far include specimens of both adult Dodo birds and chicks, tortoises, lizards, other bird species, snails, insects and plants.

What the fossils will tell us.

Because all of the fossils originate from around the same time, they are a cross section of the plants and animals that thrived on Mauritius at a point in time thousands of years before the arrival of the first humans. Scientists will learn what that ecosystem looked like – what plants were growing on the island, and what other creatures lived there. We may learn what Dodos and other creatures were eating, and through DNA studies, what their relationships were to organisms still alive today. It’s as though we’ve found the diary of the extinct Dodo bird hundreds of years after the last one died.

An international team of scientists is working at the site - experts in archaeology, sedimentology and palaeontology working together to collect as much information as they can. As they study their finds in the coming years we will all enjoy learning more about the mysterious bird that has come to symbolize extinction.