Researchers scanned the only two complete dodo skulls known to exist and used the dodo braincases to probe how the extinct bird sensed the world around itself. The study, led by the University of Lethbridge in Canada, places a rare anatomical record at the center of a long-running argument over the bird’s behavior.
Natural History Museum Denmark
Peter Andrew Hosner, Associate Professor and Curator of Birds at the Natural History Museum Denmark and a co-author of the study, said the dodo’s behavior and foraging ecology have been debated for centuries. He also said the skulls gave a unique opportunity to compare the dodo with its closest living relatives.
Christy Anna Hipsley, another co-author and Associate Professor at the Natural History Museum Denmark, said studying extinct animals is a bit like detective work. She added that the dodo’s brain disappeared centuries ago but left an imprint on the inside of the skull, allowing researchers to digitally reconstruct those spaces and compare them with the brains of living birds.
Oxford University Museum of Natural History
The team scanned three dodo skulls in total: the world’s only two known complete specimens, one held by the Natural History Museum Denmark and one held by the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, plus one less complete specimen from London’s Natural History Museum. They used X-ray CT scanning to create endocasts of the braincase, which show the size, shape and surface features of a dodo’s brain.
The researchers also X-ray CT scanned skulls of the Rodrigues solitaire, a close relative of the dodo that was discovered and hunted to extinction at a similar time. They then compared the digital reconstructions with pigeons and doves, using those living birds as a reference point for features that no longer exist in the dodo itself.
Mauritius and the dodo
The dodo lived for several thousand years on Mauritius before humans arrived, and Dutch sailors discovered the bird in 1598. Sailors’ accounts said dodos gathered in huge flocks and approached humans without alarm, but the bird was hunted to extinction 64 years after 1598 and disappeared more than 350 years ago in the late 17th century.
That reputation has long cast the dodo as a fat, fumbling fool, yet the skull-based study suggests that image may be unfounded. The article does not spell out the exact brain or skull features behind that conclusion, but the scan-based comparison gives researchers a way to revisit a species known mostly through fragments, specimens and inherited stories.
