Dodo

From Conservapedia

Dodo
Scientific classification
Kingdom Information
Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum Information
Phylum	Chordata
Class Information
Class	Aves
Order Information
Order	Columbiformes
Family Information
Family	Columbidae
Sub-family	Raphinae
Genus Information
Genus	Raphus
Species Information
Species	R. cucullatus
Population statistics
Conservation status	Extinct

The dodo, (Didus ineptus L., now Raphus cucullatus) was a large bird incapable of flying. They weighed an astounding 50 pounds and lived on the islands of Mauritius off the coast of east Africa.

The dodo became extinct in the late 1600s, and environmentalists blame human activity for this extinction; this idea is overwhelmingly supported by most known evidence. However, numerous species have always gone extinct each decade with or without human activity to blame.^{[Citation Needed]} For example, the dodo might have been wiped out by disease ^[1]. But the dodo captured people's imagination as one of the first recorded extinctions. The current leading scientific theory is that humans helped drive the dodo to extinction by bringing along rats and other animals to the island which damaged dodo habitats and destroyed dodo eggs,^[2] with human hunting also contributing to this. The introduction of humans and other animals was a threat to the dodo because it has been without any predators for the entirety of its existence, making it completely unafraid of humans and other new dangerous animals that humans introduced.^[3] Some recent evidence suggest that a natural disaster may have already put the species into decline before the arrival of humans;^[4] however, scientists conjecture that if such a disaster did in fact happen, it would not be sufficient enough to wipe out the dodo in its entirety and instead would just have expedited the effects of human intervention. The dodo was first sighted by humans in the early 1500s and it was extinct by the late 1600s; since it was not known by humans for very long and it was generally an unremarkable animal, the dodo quickly faded from people's minds and many actually thought of it as a myth until bones were discovered in the early 1800s.

The dodo has become emblematic for extinction, as in the expression "as dead as the dodo." Humorist Will Cuppy wrote, jokingly:

“

The Dodo never had a chance. He seems to have been invented for the sole purpose of becoming extinct and that was all he was good for.[5]

”

Since all records indicate that dodo meat was tough and tasted bad and that the dodo wasn't particularly challenging to hunt, it may be so that the dodo was actually completely useless to humans.

A fictional dodo leads the Caucus-Race in Lewis Carroll's book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.^[6]; one of Tenniel's illustrations shows the Dodo presenting Alice with the prize of a thimble—her own thimble, as the Dodo had previously decided that Alice was responsible for providing the prizes. Carroll's depiction of the dodo is credited with reviving public interest in the bird as the book was released around the same time that dodo remains were being first discovered.

References

1. ↑ http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/AboutUs/MinistersAndDepartmentLeaders/ChiefMedicalOfficer/Features/DH_4102997
2. ↑ [1]
3. ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/2255991.stm
4. ↑ [2]
5. ↑ Cuppy, Will, How to Become Extinct
6. ↑ Chapter III, "A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale