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

Dodo and guinea pig, 1750. Artist: George Edwards

Dodo and guinea pig, 1750. A dodo - Didus ineptus, an extinct flightless bird from Mauritius and a guinea pig - Cavia porcellus, a rodent native to South America. Portuguese sailors were the first people to see a dodo when they arrived at Mauritius in 1507. By 1681, a combination of the activities of people and the animals they introduced onto the island had completely eradicated the birds. From A Natural History of Uncommon Birds by George Edwards. (London, 1750)

© Ann Ronan Picture Library / Heritage-Images