The Myth of the Dodo

Picture: "Dodo, Raphus Cucullatus" von Roland Savery (1626)

Who was that dodo, living on the island Mauritius until 300 years ago, and why did he suddenly disappear? Through archaeological findings, paintings and descriptions by sailors, an image of this bird was slowly reconstructed for the modern world. Remarkably enough, the dodo is still very famous today, which is probably because of the strange way it looked. Bigger than a swan, with a gray, fluffy coat, its dumpy figure waddled on short legs slowly. Despite these funny features the dodo had a huge break, a bald face and big fold in its neck, making it look similar to a vulture.

The dodo was not built to fly or swim because there were no natural enemies on his island, so he never learned to defend himself or escape from anything. When the Dutch explorer Laacob van Neck and his crew reached Mauritius, a small island just off of Madagascar, during his circumnavigation of Africa in 1598, he wrote the following about the dodo: “They are bigger than swans, have big half coated heads that look like hoods and their tiny wings have only black feathers…” Even today many myths and stories revolve around the dodo.

Johannes Lüttschwager:	„Die Drontenvögel“
David Quammen:	„The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction“
Georg Menting, Gerhard Hard:	„Vom Dodo lernen- Öko Mythen um einen Symbolvogel des Naturschutzes“
Clara Pinto-Correia:	„Return of the Crazy Bird- The Sad, Strange Tale of the Dodo“
Vincent Ziswiler:	„Der Dodo- Fantasien und Fakten zu einem verschwundenen Vogel“