A new study which involved a team of scientists going through 400 years-worth of literature and visiting and measuring dodo specimens around the UK came to the conclusion that it was invasive species such as cats and rats and others rather than Dutch sailors – who hunted the dodo for its meat – which made this most-discussed bird extinct.
In the study, published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, the authors (see citation below) came to the conclusion that the illustrations of the dodo, with which we are very familiar, were often misrepresentations. They show a bird which is dumpy and by implication slow-moving, a bit like a wood duck which travels at 8 mph. But in studying the anatomy of the dodo from surviving samples they concluded that it travelled quickly at up to 20-30 mph which is on a par with the domestic cat which has a claimed top speed of around 30 mph. The skeleton of the dodo shows quite a tall ground dwelling bird.
Dodo was fast on its feet but no match for the killer cats by Michael BroadThe ostrich travels at 43 mph maximum. The dodo has been done a disservice by illustrators and earlier scientists. Dr. Neil Gostling from the University of Southampton, who oversaw the study, said that:
“Evidence from bone specimens suggests that the dodo’s tendon which closed its toes was exceptionally powerful, an analagous to climbing and running birds alive today. The dodo was almost certainly a very active, very fast animal. It wasn’t fat and slow and destined to go extinct, it was doing quite well. I think it’s about 25 million years that it lived quite happily on Mauritius. It just hadn’t met with rats and cats.”
The dodo’s abilities were sadly underestimated. It would be surviving today quite happily on Mauritius if an army of humans hadn’t arrived at that Island bringing rats in ships and cats as pets, some of which, presumably, became feral and bred rapidly. The dodo was not familiar with a mammalian predator of the efficiency and commitment of the domestic or feral cat. They didn’t stand a chance.
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We are told that they were hunted by humans for their meat but this was not the cause of their demise. Dutch sailors encountered the birds during the 17th century and they would have found it easy to hunt. The dodo became extinct more than 300 years ago.
The scientists were able to study surviving soft tissue kept in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. The study authors suggest that some of the early illustrators of the dodo had never met the bird alive and were simply repeating what they had seen in other illustrations. One of the most famous illustrations was painted by Jan Savery, according to The Times report written by Rhys Blakely, the newspaper’s science correspondent. This illustrator painted the dodo in the 17th century showing it as being a “rotund, rather dour-looking bird that appears incapable of any turn of speed.”
The study confirmed that the dodo and the Rodrigues Island Solitaire were members of the pigeon and dove family (columbid family).
They also decided that there’s still so much to learn about the dodo four centuries later. Another member of the team, Dr. Mark Young, of the University of Southampton, and the lead author of the research paper said: “Was the dodo really the dumb, slow animal we’ve been brought up to believe it was? The few written accounts of live dodos say it was a fast-moving animal that loved the forest.”
They were perfectly adapted to their habitat and at that time there were no mammalian predators in it. The humans arrived and with them invasive species; species unknown to the dodo. They didn’t stand a chance.
Study citation
Mark T Young, Julian P Hume, Michael O Day, Robert P Douglas, Zoë M Simmons, Judith White, Markus O Heller, Neil J Gostling, The systematics and nomenclature of the Dodo and the Solitaire (Aves: Columbidae), and an overview of columbid family-group nomina, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, Volume 201, Issue 4, August 2024, zlae086, https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae086
The Stephens Island Wren
Perhaps the best-known example and one which is routinely cited by the Australian authorities as a reason why they must exterminate all feral cats on their continent is the Stephens Island wren. It’s a well documented example of how a bird species can be driven to extinction by the introduction of an invasive species, on this occasion, the domestic cat.
This species of bird was unique to Stephens Island, New Zealand. It was a small flightless bird thriving within its habitat; dense vegetation. In the late 19th century lighthouse keeper brought a domestic cat to the island which quickly adapted to the island habitat and began to hunt native fauna.
The cat and feral cats preyed on various small birds including the Stephens Island wren. The people involved were incredibly careless in protecing the bird but this was a different time when conservation was in its infancy.
The bird had no natural predators and was therefore particularly vulnerable. The population of this bird dwindled rapidly after the cat’s arrival and by 1894 only a few individuals were reported and by 1900 the species was declared extinct.
The story underscores the way a single invasive species can decimate an island population of a vulnerable species to mammalian predators. As mentioned it is often cited by those who want to exterminate feral cats.
More: The true story of the extinction of New Zealand’s Stephens Island Wren by feral cats
