This is the dodo, Raphus cucullatus.

It has been extinct for more than 300 years.

The island of Mauritius, where the dodo once lived, was uninhabited by humans until 1598. Previously, the only mammals to exist there were four bat species - birds and reptiles were the dominant terrestrial animals. Some birds, including the dodo, had few predators and showed no fear of humans, so they made easy and welcome meals for the new arrivals, despite their questionable flavour.

The first visitors called the bird “walghvogel” - “walghe” means “tasteless”, “insipid” or “sickly”, and “vogel” means “bird”. The name didn’t stick, however, and at some point “dodo” came into use, although its derivation is unclear. Some have speculated it comes from “dodoor”, meaning “sluggard”, but it more likely has origins in “dodaars” - “fat-arse”, or “knotted-arse”.

The word “dodo” has, in turn, entered many languages, variously meaning “dull-witted”, “slow”, or “obsolete”.

Thomas Herbert’s “A relation of some years’ travail” described the dodo in 1634:

“It is reputed more for wonder than for food, greasy stomachs may seek after them, but to the delicate they are offensive and of no nourishment. Her visage darts forth melancholy, as sensible of Nature's injury in framing so great a body to be guided with complemental wings, so small and impotent, that they serve only to prove her bird. The half of her head is naked, seeming covered with a fine veil, her bill is crooked downwards, in midst is the thrill, from which part to the end ’tis a light green, mixed with pale yellow tincture; her eyes are small and like to diamonds, round and rolling; her clothing downy feathers, her train three small plumes, short and inproportionable, her legs suiting her body, her pounces sharp, her appetite strong and greedy. Stones and iron are digested, which description will better be conceived in her representation.”

It is unlikely that the dodo was eaten into extinction, as is commonly thought. The reality was probably more complex. A maximum of just 50 people lived on the island at the time, and there was a bounty of food from other sources - including better-tasting native species of bird and fish, and the settlers’ livestock.

As is the case on so many other remote islands, it is probable that introduced mammals played a huge role in the demise of this species. It was reported soon after colonisation that rats had multiplied to plague proportions, and they likely fed on the dodo’s eggs and young. Pigs would have disturbed the soil, transforming the forest floor where the dodos nested. The forest itself was cleared for settlements and agriculture.

At some time in the late 17th century, less than 100 years after the island was first inhabited, the dodo was gone. At the time, however, its disappearance was barely even noticed. Confusion surrounding the bird’s appearance led to other bird species being referred to as “dodos”, even on nearby islands, where the actual dodo never lived. For religious reasons, the very concept of extinction was considered radical until the early 19th century.

Mythologies around the bird grew. Many doubted it ever existed at all.
Despite once being a common sight on the island of Mauritius, surprisingly little is known of the dodo’s behaviour, diet, habitat, or even appearance. Various vague, conflicting descriptions of the dodo exist. Many of the sources from the time are unreliable, or second-hand. The focus seems to have been on whether the bird was good for eating.
The most accurate illustration of the dodo was done by renowned artist Ustad Mansur, in around 1625, who was employed at the court of Emperor Jahangir. This painting of a live specimen was only discovered in 1958, in the collection of the Institute of Oriental studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg.

Physical remains of the dodo are incredibly rare. One example of soft tissue is known to exist - a head kept at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History - and several skeletons, one of which, in 2019, sold at auction for over $600,000.

The dodo has become emblematic for the biodiversity crisis and human-induced species extinction. However, our ambivalence towards the natural world and our urge for progress, growth and temporary gain have not been subdued in any significant way.