The Newtonian

“You’re as dumb as a dodo” a common saying often heard when calling someone stupid, as it is directly comparing someone’s intelligence to an animal notorious for going extinct due to their stupidity. The portrayal of dodos as “dumb” in the media also strengthens this notion. Take the popular movie Ice Age (2002)for example, in the scene where they portray dodos as brainless birds that jump off cliffs despite being flightless. However, not everything shown in the media is accurately portrayed and this is merely one example of that.

To understand the real reason why dodos went extinct in the first place as well as the origin of this misconception, we must first understand the theory of evolution by natural selection. Originally published in 1859 by Charles Darwin, this theory states that evolution is a natural phenomenon in which organisms develop certain traits and characteristics to help more offspring survive, thus maintaining the population of that species. This happens through natural selection or “survival of the fittest” where only the organisms with the best features breed to pass on their good genes to their offspring. The development of certain traits and characteristics highly depend on the environment and conditions in which the animal lives. For example, how parrots are more brightly colored than other birds, in order to best camouflage themselves amongst the brightly colored plants in their habitat.

However, not all cases of evolution and adaptations are good – the dodo birds being a victim of that. Dodos evolved from a relative of pigeons living on the east coast of Africa which migrated to an abundant and flourishing island farther east called Mauritius, one of the many Mascarene islands. Mauritius was a relatively new island, small enough to be hard to survive but far away enough from any mainland to support plant life but with little to no support for animal life. As it is much easier for plant seeds to be carried by the wind and waves than for any other animals to swim or fly to the island. So once the original pigeons arrived they discovered a natural paradise full of nutritious food, no competitors, and no predators.

It was so good that these pigeons never left the island for years, which resulted in many adaptations, slowly moulding it into the dodos we know today. They developed bigger beaks, allowing them to eat the fruits on the island; they grew to around 3 feet tall from their previous size of less than half a foot because of the abundance of food. Considering they had no use for flying anymore, their wings became small vestigial traits, which are useless body parts that remain as evidence of evolution, like a human’s tailbone. But good things always come with a price, the lack of predators eventually led to the loss of their survival instincts and sense of danger.

As human explorers discovered the island of Mauritius they also discovered dodos, which they noted as enormous birds that didn’t run away from them; an excellent animal to hunt. In 1638 the Dutch tried to colonise Mauritius and in doing so, they discovered and hunted down dodos, regardless that was not the main cause of their extinction. The Dutch introduced many animals to the island namely dogs, cats, pigs, and long-tailed macaques. These animals not only hunted dodos, but they multiplied quickly which put even more pressure on the dodo population.

Even if dodos did have their survival instincts, its legs were far too small for it's body to efficiently escape, and its vestigial wings offer no help at all. Furthermore, the Dutch destroyed their habitats for agricultural space, leaving less food and less hiding space for the dodos to survive. In the end, the dodo is predicted to have gone extinct around 1688-1715 as its last sighting was in 1662.

Not only did the dodos on Mauritius go extinct, but their neighboring relatives the Réunion solitaire, a white version of the dodo, and the Rodrigues solitaire, the brown and taller version, also went extinct soon after in 1746 and 1790. All for the same exact reasons; hunted to extinction by humans and the animals they brought along with them.

Dodo birds should not be blamed for their extinction, in fact we humans are directly responsible for their extinction. The adaptations the dodos went through did contribute to why they went extinct, but if humans never ravaged the island they could still exist. Moreover we didn’t only make them extinct, but we plastered an unintelligent stereotype on these birds. There is nothing we can do to change the past, but hopefully as a modern society we can learn to not repeat the same mistakes again. The dodo played an important role in raising awareness on the extinction of animals along with hundreds of animal species still endangered to this day. Nevertheless with combined efforts we can save many animal species from a terrible fate, something we should have done with the dodo.

Sources

The Dodo: A Series of Unfortunate Adaptations

Sakulya Kovitgoolkri