Dodo
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. Actually, numerous species have always gone extinct each decade with or without human activity to blame. But the dodo captured people's imagination as one of the first recorded extinctions. The environmentalists' theory is that humans helped drive the dodo to extinction by hunting and by bringing along rats and other animals to the island which damage the dodo habitat and stole dodo eggs.[1] But evidence indicates that a natural disaster had already put the species into decline before the arrival of humans.[2]
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.[3]
A fictional dodo leads the Caucus-Race in Lewis Carroll's book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.[4]; one of Tenniel's illustrations shows the Dodo presenting Alice with the prize of a thimbleâher own thimble, as the Dodo had previously decided that Alice was responsible for providing the prizes.