Some Obscurish facts
#1460
The dodo or dronte (scientific name Raphus cucullatus) was a flightless bird native only to the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. The dodo was a flightless member of the pigeon family. Fully grown dodos weighted about 23 kg (50 pounds). Around 1505 the Portuguese became the first Europeans to discover the dodo. By 1681 it had been driven to extinction by humans and the feral dogs, pigs, rats, and monkeys introduced by Europeans to Mauritius. The dodo was not the only Mauritian bird driven to extinction in recent centuries. Of the 45 bird species originally found, only 21 still survive. Two bird species closely related to the dodo also became extinct: the Reunion solitaire by 1746, and the Rodrigues solitaire by 1790. Reports of sightings of living dodos in the 1990s on Mauritius prompted William J. Gibbons to mount expeditions to search for them. None were found.
The dodo or dronte (scientific name Raphus cucullatus) was a flightless bird native only to the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. The dodo was a flightless member of the pigeon family. Fully grown dodos weighted about 23 kg (50 pounds). Around 1505 the Portuguese became the first Europeans to discover the dodo. By 1681 it had been driven to extinction by humans and the feral dogs, pigs, rats, and monkeys introduced by Europeans to Mauritius. The dodo was not the only Mauritian bird driven to extinction in recent centuries. Of the 45 bird species originally found, only 21 still survive. Two bird species closely related to the dodo also became extinct: the Reunion solitaire by 1746, and the Rodrigues solitaire by 1790. Reports of sightings of living dodos in the 1990s on Mauritius prompted William J. Gibbons to mount expeditions to search for them. None were found.