The Real Story Of The Dodo Bird's (Current) Extinction

Summary

The script debunks common myths about the dodo, revealing new insights from 2005 excavations. It explains the dodo's evolutionary success in Mauritius, despite environmental challenges, and its eventual extinction due to introduced species like pigs and rats. The narrative also hints at the possibility of de-extinction, showcasing the bird's resilience and adaptations, and ending with a lighter note on the humor in paleontology.

Takeaways

• 🕊️ The dodo was a flightless bird native to Mauritius, often misunderstood and misrepresented in history.
• 📚 The dodo's extinction was not immediately recognized, with its last known sighting around 1660 and the concept of extinction only proposed in the late 1700s.
• 🌐 The British, in 1810, questioned the dodo's existence due to the lack of concrete evidence and the mythical nature of early accounts.
• 🦴 In 1848, the first scientific work on the dodo was published, suggesting it was a form of pigeon, a theory that was initially ridiculed.
• 🔍 The 2005 discovery of over 200 dodo bones in a Mauritian swamp allowed for a more accurate understanding of the species and its environment.
• 🏞️ The swamp findings revealed that the dodo was well-adapted to its environment, contrary to the belief that it was an evolutionary mistake.
• 🦶 The dodo had strong legs and a large brain with well-developed olfactory regions, indicating a good sense of smell and resilience.
• 🧬 Advances in ancient DNA research have confirmed the dodo's close relation to doves and pigeons.
• 🐦 The dodo evolved from a flying Asian pigeon ancestor and became flightless due to the absence of predators on Mauritius.
• 🥚 The dodo's vulnerability was its single, ground-laid egg, which made it susceptible to predation by introduced species like pigs and rats.
• 🔬 The dodo's story is being reevaluated with the possibility of de-extinction being explored, challenging the notion of its inevitable extinction.

Q & A

What is the common misconception about the dodo bird?

The common misconception is that the dodo was a fat, flightless bird that was an evolutionary mistake and its extinction was inevitable due to human intervention.

Why was there a lack of information about the dodo when it went extinct?

There was a lack of information because no one noticed or was worried about preserving information about the dodo when it went extinct. The concept of species extinction had not caught on in western science yet.

When were the first written records of the dodo made?

The first written records of the dodo were made in 1598 by Dutch sailors.

What was the estimated time frame for the dodo's extinction?

The dodo was estimated to have gone extinct around 1660, although the exact date is uncertain due to lack of attention at the time.

What significant discovery in 2005 changed our understanding of the dodo?

Excavations at a swamp on the island of Mauritius in 2005 unearthed more than 200 dodo bones, allowing researchers to study the animal and its ecosystem in a new light.

What did the 2005 excavation reveal about the dodo's environment?

The excavation revealed that the dodo's environment was characterized by significant environmental challenges such as climatic instability, extreme weather events like cyclones and droughts.

How did the dodo adapt to its environment according to the 2005 findings?

The dodo had strong legs for navigating the mountainous environment and a large brain with well-developed olfactory regions, indicating a good sense of smell, which were adaptations to its environment.

What is the dodo's genetic relationship to other birds based on recent studies?

Recent genetic studies have revealed that dodos are most closely related to doves and pigeons.

How did the dodo become flightless?

The dodo became flightless after its flying Asian pigeon ancestors settled on Mauritius around 7 million years ago, where the absence of predators made the energy cost of flight unnecessary.

What is believed to be the primary vulnerability of the dodo that contributed to its extinction?

The dodo's primary vulnerability was that it laid one large egg at a time on the ground, making it susceptible to predation by introduced species like pigs and rats.

What modern concept is the dodo's story potentially relevant to?

The dodo's story is potentially relevant to the concept of de-extinction, as new understanding of its ecology and DNA has sparked interest in exploring the possibility of bringing it back.

What is the significance of the dodo's story in the context of Earth Month?

The dodo's story serves as a reminder of the impact of human activities on ecosystems and the importance of understanding and preserving biodiversity, which aligns with the themes of Earth Month.

Outlines

00:00

🐦 The Misconceptions of the Dodo's Legacy

This paragraph dispels common myths about the dodo, a bird that once inhabited Mauritius. Contrary to popular belief, the dodo was not an evolutionary mistake but a species well-adapted to its environment. The paragraph explains that the dodo's extinction was not due to its inability to fly or perceived lack of intelligence, but rather the result of human activities and the introduction of invasive species like pigs and rats. The dodo's story is one of adaptation and resilience, not naivety, and its extinction was an unintended consequence of human presence on Mauritius.

05:01

🌱 The Dodo's True Nature and Extinction

This paragraph explores the true nature of the dodo and the circumstances that led to its extinction. It reveals that the dodo was a successful species, adapted to the ecological conditions of Mauritius, with strong legs and a good sense of smell. The paragraph also discusses the dodo's evolutionary history, showing that it descended from a flying pigeon ancestor that became flightless due to the absence of predators on the island. The dodo's extinction is attributed to human activities, particularly the introduction of egg-eating species like pigs and rats, which exploited the dodo's vulnerability of laying single, ground-nest eggs. The paragraph concludes with the intriguing possibility of de-extinction, suggesting that our new understanding of the dodo could pave the way for bringing the species back to life.

Keywords

💡Dodo

The dodo is a species of bird that is famously extinct, known for being large, flightless, and once native to Mauritius. It has become a symbol of extinction and is often cited as an example of an evolutionary mistake. In the video, the dodo's story is revisited to challenge common misconceptions and to explore its true ecological role and the circumstances of its extinction.

💡Extinction

Extinction refers to the state where a species no longer exists. The concept is central to the video's theme, as it discusses the dodo's extinction and how it was initially misunderstood. The script highlights that the dodo's extinction was not inevitable and was more a result of human-induced ecosystem changes rather than the bird's supposed lack of adaptability.

💡Evolutionary mistake

The term 'evolutionary mistake' is used in the script to describe the misconception that the dodo was an unsuccessful evolutionary outcome. The video corrects this notion by explaining that the dodo was well-adapted to its environment, with traits that allowed it to thrive despite environmental challenges.

💡Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a community of living organisms interacting with their physical environment. The script describes the dodo's ecosystem in Mauritius, which was characterized by environmental challenges such as climatic instability and extreme weather events. Understanding the ecosystem is crucial to the video's narrative as it provides context for the dodo's adaptations and eventual extinction.

💡Adaptation

Adaptation in biology refers to the process by which organisms become better suited to their environment. The video emphasizes the dodo's various adaptations, such as strong legs for navigating mountainous terrain and a large brain with well-developed olfactory regions, indicating a keen sense of smell, which allowed it to survive in its challenging ecosystem.

💡Ancient DNA

Ancient DNA is genetic material extracted from the remains of organisms that lived in the past. The script mentions the advances in the field of ancient DNA that have allowed researchers to study the dodo's genetics in more detail, confirming its relation to doves and pigeons and providing insights into its evolutionary history.

💡Flightless

Being flightless means lacking the ability to fly. The dodo is described as having evolved from a flying ancestor to become flightless due to the absence of predators in its environment. The video explains that this was an evolutionary trade-off, where the energy cost of flight was not justified in the dodo's predator-free habitat.

💡De-extinction

De-extinction is the process of bringing back a species that has gone extinct. The video concludes by mentioning the concept of de-extinction in the context of the dodo, suggesting that with a better understanding of its ecology and genetics, the possibility of resurrecting the species is being explored.

💡Egg-hungry associates

In the script, 'egg-hungry associates' refers to the pigs and rats introduced by humans to Mauritius, which preyed on the dodo's eggs. This is presented as a key factor in the dodo's extinction, highlighting the impact of invasive species on island ecosystems.

💡Resilience

Resilience in an ecological context refers to the ability of an organism to withstand or recover from disturbances. The video describes how the dodo showed resilience by surviving in an environment with significant challenges, such as droughts and cyclones, as evidenced by growth lines in their bones.

💡Misunderstood

The term 'misunderstood' is used in the video to describe the dodo and the misconceptions about its characteristics and extinction. The script aims to correct these misunderstandings by presenting new findings that reveal the dodo as a well-adapted species rather than a failed evolutionary experiment.

Highlights

The dodo, once considered an evolutionary mistake, is revealed to have been a resilient species well-adapted to its environment.

Contrary to popular belief, the dodo's extinction was not due to human hunting but rather the introduction of invasive species like pigs and rats.

The dodo's extinction was not inevitable and is being reevaluated in light of new archaeological findings.

The dodo's supposed stupidity was a myth; it was actually adapted to survive in an ecosystem with significant environmental challenges.

New excavations in 2005 unearthed over 200 dodo bones, providing researchers with a wealth of new information about the species.

The dodo had strong legs and a large brain with well-developed olfactory regions, indicating a good sense of smell.

Ancient DNA studies have confirmed that dodos are most closely related to doves and pigeons.

The dodo evolved from a flying Asian pigeon ancestor that became flightless due to the absence of predators on Mauritius.

The dodo's vulnerability was its habit of laying a single large egg on the ground, making it an easy target for introduced species.

The concept of extinction was not well understood until the late 1700s, long after the dodo had disappeared.

The dodo's name is rumored to have come from a Portuguese word for simpleton, but this is just one of many misconceptions about the species.

The first written records of the dodo date back to 1598, when Dutch sailors described it as easy to catch due to its lack of fear.

The dodo was not hunted for its taste but for its ability to feed many sailors in a single meal.

The dodo's extinction was not noticed until the British took over Mauritius in 1810 and naturalists began to question its existence.

The possibility of de-extincting the dodo is being explored with advancements in our understanding of its ecology and genetics.

The dodo's story is a valuable case study in understanding the concept of extinction and the potential for species revival.

The documentary series 'Women of the Earth' highlights women working to heal the earth from climate change, in line with the dodo's story of ecological impact.

Transcripts

You might think that you know the story of the dodo – that fat, flightless bird that

once roamed the mountainous, tropical forests of the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.

It's long been a poster child for extinction and an example of an evolutionary mistake

– a species whose eventual demise at the hands of humans was pretty much inevitable.

Even the dodo’s name is rumored to have come from a Portuguese word for simpleton.

I've been called worse...

But it turns out that the things you might’ve heard about the dodo are just…not true.

And this is partially because, when it went extinct, nobody actually noticed.

No one was really worried about preserving any information about it, until it was too late.

It would take a new discovery in 2005 for 

us to realize that almost  all of our old assumptions

about it were just totally wrong.

It turns out, we didn’t know the dodo at all.

So what is the real story of the dodo?

How did such a unique bird even evolve in the first place?

And are we really responsible for its extinction?

Well, much like the dodo itself, the answers to these questions are not so simple.

As far as we can tell, people never spent much time on Mauritius until the early 16th

century, when sailors began stopping there on their travels.

The first written records of the dodo date to 1598.

Dutch sailors described it as fat, slow, and 

so oblivious to threats that it  could be caught and killed easily.

And even though they apparently weren’t especially tasty, a single chonky dodo could

feed so many sailors that they were hunted in large numbers.

Sixty years later, the dodo was gone.

The last widely accepted sighting dates to 

around 1660, but no one is  really sure exactly when

it disappeared because no one was really paying attention.

In fact, the concept of an entire species 

being gone forever hadn’t really  caught on in western science yet.

Extinction wouldn’t even be proposed until around a century later, in the late 1700s.

So it wasn’t until well after the dodo had 

already vanished that scientists  started paying attention.

See, when the British took over Mauritius 

in 1810, a major boom in interest  in natural history was unfolding.

And, by that point, tales of the dodo were so odd that, at first, British naturalists

wondered if it had ever been real at all, likening it to a mythical phoenix.

In 1816, they held a meeting to ask the island’s 

oldest inhabitants if they remembered  the dodo or any talk of it.

Now, over 150 years had passed since the last known sighting.

So, unsurprisingly, they did not.

All that was left were some Dutch illustrations and stories, many of which contradicted each

other, as well as a few bones and body parts scattered in museums throughout Europe.

The world had been left without even one complete dodo.

In 1848, two naturalists working at Oxford published the first scientific work on the animal.

They used what little evidence they’d been able to gather and study and drew from the

various Dutch accounts from centuries earlier.

They called it a “strange abnormal bird” 

with a “grotesque appearance,” which  seems needlessly mean, but they

were at least convinced that it had once existed.

They concluded that it was some odd form of 

pigeon, an idea that they were  widely ridiculed for at the time.

And, for a long time, that’s about as complete 

a picture of the rise and  fall of the dodo as we had.

But in 2005, all that began to change.

Excavations at a swamp on the island unearthed more than 200 dodo bones, giving

researchers a chance to study the animal in a new light.

The site allowed them to understand the broader ecosystem of the dodo and put the species

into its actual ecological context for the first time.

And what the researchers found was surprising.

The dodo’s supposed stupidity wasn’t a result of having evolved in a sheltered paradise

that left them fat, happy, and complacent.

The swamp and the dodos it preserved told a totally different story.

What the researchers saw was an ecosystem 

characterized by significant  environmental challenges.

Climatic instability and extreme weather events, like cyclones and droughts, were common.

For example, the site documented a drought 4200 years ago that caused animals to flock

to the area in search of fresh water.

The stress of this event even left a mark in the bones of the dodos themselves.

These marks came in the form of lines of arrested growth, which reveal periods where growth

slowed as the animal struggled to find resources.

So the fact that dodos, as a species, were able to survive and thrive under these kinds of

repeated challenges over evolutionary time meant that they must have actually been pretty

resilient and well-adapted to their unpredictable home.

And the more-complete skeletons from this swampy bone-bed even revealed that the birds had

a number of impressive adaptations for their environment.

For example, they had strong legs, which would 

have helped them get around in  their mountainous environment.

And they had big skulls that housed a pretty large brain with well-developed olfactory

regions, suggesting they had a good sense of smell.

Plus, as the field of ancient DNA has advanced over the last two decades, we’ve even been

able to study dodo genetics in increasing detail.

This has revealed that dodos are, indeed, most closely related to doves and pigeons,

confirming the idea proposed by Oxford researchers back in 1848.

Ok, but so how did they end up becoming so unusual compared to their closest living relatives?

Well, it seems that dodos emerged from a flying Asian pigeon ancestor that began

crossing the Indian Ocean around 43 million years ago.

As a chain of volcanic islands began to form in the Ocean around this time, the birds used

them as stepping stones on their travels.

Eventually, when Mauritius emerged from the waves around 7 million years ago, the dodos’

ancestors arrived by air, settled into their new home, and became flightless.

After all, evolution is about trade-offs, and in an environment without any predators,

the ability to fly simply wasn't worth the energy cost.

It’s a process we’ve seen happen time-and-time again with birds that arrive on islands without

animals they need to evade.

Flight becomes unnecessary,  wings become vestigial, 

and bodies become bulky - sometimes comically so.

Ok, so if the dodo was  actually pretty well-adapted 

to its environment, rather  than being an evolutionary

mistake, then what happened to them?

Like, why did they go extinct?

Well, the classic story is that we simply ate them to extinction, because they were

too easy to catch.

But in reality, it seems that this was less a result of our appetite, and more our habit

of altering the delicate balance of ecosystems wherever we go.

You see, dodos had one key vulnerability that may have spelled their downfall - an Achilles

heel, if you will, that put them at risk even  

before they were born…

They only laid one large egg at a time, and on the ground too, rather than hidden away

in some treetop nest.

And when people arrived on Mauritius, we brought a couple of very egg-hungry associates with us.

The associates I'm talking  about are pigs and rats.

These creatures have devastated a range of island bird species across the world after

being introduced, regardless of whether those birds seem intelligent or agile or not.

So it wasn't exactly us humans that doomed the dodo – not directly at least.

Nor was it necessarily their supposed lack of smarts and speed.

Far from being the hopeless sitting duck that it may have seemed at first glance, the dodo

was for the most part, an evolutionary success.

It was a species superbly adapted to its specific ecological conditions.

Until, of course, we and other mammals that

we traveled with suddenly  changed those conditions.

And its demise didn’t just prove to be a valuable case study in understanding the concept

of extinction back when that was a radical new idea…

But it also may end up being a case study 

in an equally radical idea  emerging today: de-extinction.

Armed with our new understanding of the dodo’s ecology, its DNA, and the recognition that

its extinction was not inevitable, 

the possibility of bringing it  back is seriously being explored.

So perhaps the dodos’ story has another 

surprising chapter or two  just waiting to be written.

Hey friends!

This episode was part of PBS's  celebration of Earth Month,  

and on that note I'm excited to tell you about  a new series called "Women of the Earth".

It's a documentary series on PBS Terra about women  

who are working to heal the  earth from climate change.

In the first episode, you'll meet a shepherd  pioneering sustainable grazing techniques.

There's a link to it in the description below.

We hope you check it out, along with the  rest of PBS's Earth Month playlist. Thanks!

Ok, so hey, what do you want to know  about the story of life on Earth?

Let us know in the comments!

And thanks to this month’s well adapted Eontologists!

Why...

are you making me say these things?

Gale Brown, Juan M, Jacksy Weiss, Melanie Lam Carnevale, Raphael Haase, Annie & Eric

Higgins, John Davison Ng, Jake Hart, and Colton.

Become an Eonite at patreon.com/eons and you 

can get fun perks, like  submitting a joke for me to read.

Like this one from The Kemp Family.

Why did archaeopteryx get the worm?

Because they were an ‘early bird’.

Yeah...

That, that works on two levels  so I guess that counts as a joke.

[laughs]

[Faith, DIRECTOR OF THE  SHOOT, OFFSCREEN] I loved it!

And as always thank you for joining  me in the Adam Lowe studio.

Subscribe at youtube.com/eons for more primordial ordeals.

I like that!

...even revealed that the birds had a number of  impressive adaptations for their environment.

For example, they had strong  legs, which I do not...

[laughs]

Today's leg day so that's on my mind.

I'm already dreading it.

I'm up to 380 in the leg press. That's my PR.