Dodo Gallery

Dodo at The African Museum of the Island of Aix

A Dodo at The African Museum of the Island of Aix is a French museum located on the island of Aix in Charente-Maritime . Sharing the label museum of France with the nearby Napoleonic Museum, it houses the hunting trophies of Baron Gourgaud (1891-1944), as well as a series of ethnographic objects from the African continent, staged according to the customs of the 1930s. The Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) of Mauritius is only a reproduction, since the species had been extinct since the 18th century. Date: circa 1920s

Dodo, Raphus cucullatus, extinct bird

Dodo, Raphus cucullatus, extinct bird. . Handcolored lithograph from Leopold Josef Fitzinger's Picturebook of the Natural History of Birds, Vienna, 1864. Fitzinger was director of the Zoological Gardens in Munich

© Florilegius / Mary Evans

Bird, Didusineptus, Dodo, Extinct, Handcolored, Historical, History, Leopoldjoseffitzinger, Lithograph, Ornithology, Picturebookofthenaturalhistoryofbirds, Raphuscucullatus

Coloured Engraving of a dodo

Engraving of a dodo, an extinct, flightless bird, related to the pigeon. The size of a swan, it was heavily-built and clumsy. Two species were known with certainty: the common dodo Raphus cucullatus from Mauritius, which became extinct between 1665 and 1670, and the Rodriguez solitaire Pezophaps solitaria from the neighbouring island of Rodriguez, which died out around 1761. The dodo's numbers quickly dwindled following the arrival of humans to these isolated habitats. All but defenceless, they were ill-equipped to cope with the new hunters & the competition from other introduced species. Copper engraving from Historia Naturalis Brasiliae, W. Piso & G. Marcgrave, 1658

© DR JEREMY BURGESS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY