4 facts about the dodo

1.It takes a lot of energy to fly, which is why nature favors this adaptation only when it's absolutely necessary. Once the Dodo Bird's pigeon ancestors alit on their island paradise, they gradually lost their ability to fly, and at the same time evolved to turkey-like sizes. (Secondary flightlessness is a recurrent theme in bird evolution, seen in breeds as different as penguins, ostriches, chickens, and the terror birds that preyed on South American mammals only a few million years after the dinosaurs went extinct.)

2.The Dodo Bird disappeared so quickly off the face of the earth, 300 years ago, that it has become the poster bird for extinction: hence the popular expression "as dead as a dodo." As sudden and swift as the Dodo's demise was, though, it holds important lessons for endangered animals that are just barely holding on in the present day. Here are 10 facts you may (or may not) have known about this unfortunate bird.

3.Some time during the Pleistocene epoch, a badly lost flock of pigeons landed on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, about 700 miles east of Madagascar. The pigeons prospered, evolving over hundreds of thousands of years into the flightless, three-foot-tall, 50-pound Dodo Bird--which was probably first glimpsed by human beings when Dutch settlers landed on Mauritius in 1598. Less than 75 years later, the Dodo Bird was completely extinct; the last confirmed sighting of this hapless bird was in 1662.

4.Why did the Dodo Bird vanish so quickly? Well, until the modern era, the Dodo led a charmed life: there were no pesky mammals, reptiles, or even large insects on its island habitat, and thus no need to evolve any natural defenses. Dodo Birds were so innately trusting that they would actually waddle up to armed Dutch settlers, unaware that these strange animals wanted to kill and eat them, and they made irresistible box lunches for these settlers' cats, dogs and monkeys.

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