Shoebills – > herons, pelicans, storks.

The kinds of differences between the two birds seem to be of a sort that could be explained by divergent evolution. The dodo not so charasmatic and interesting possibly as the shoebill because of its rather less exciting and more narrowly challenging environment. Plus the latters physical appearance which in flight might pass for a flying reptile unknown to science!

The DNA apparently doesnt show a link but there are questions about both sets of DNA, so I think the door is at least partly open on this score and knowledge of DNA is always progressing.

Clearly there is a lot of speculation here, but why not and it is worth looking at the extraordinary shoebill.

There have been considerable finds of bones in recent years and the situation is not as bad as the perspective Liverpool museum puts on it would suggest. I think we can expect to see many more articulated skeletons in the future as well as better and better DNA results. In addition I expect there is quite a lot of dodo material scattered around the world in and out of museums. I intend to ask my local museum what they have behind the scenes at my next visit, bearing in mind that from it over the centuries, boats sailed the world in large numbers.
Miss G-force I hope you are right I think survival all depends on if a suitable environment is available and our view of dodos as lazy fat helpless lumps is wrong! I suspect in fact the dodo had an ability to fatten up to weather out lean times. The remaining environment is a bit of a mystery to me. I know this area is a fast growing one in population and development.

Fhgwhgads, though the dodo may not have sailed the seven seas they did sail a couple at least to parts of Europe and there is a possibility that there was some movement within the islands courtesy of sailors. In addition there was probably movement around the islands as they rose and fell over the years.

I must say the dodo seems a fascinating subject-as I now appreciate thanks to Cryptomundo-It would make a really good tv documentary if handled right. It is also good to know the subject is hot with the Dutch research group doing another expedition to Mauritius and coming up with some good stuff.

Dodos seem a good subject for bringing back when-as I expect-DNA and the technology is available. There would be a hugh incentive from the tourist industry. Also a very good subject for cryptozoology though not perhaps meeting everybody’s criteria.

There are several very small islands immediately off Mauritius – so perhaps some of these are still without mammals and might have a few Dodos? It also shows the other islands in the Mascarene Plateau, including Reunion and the Seychelles at each end and Rodrigues island which had the other flightless pigeon species (now extinct). The article above doesn’t say which ‘islands surrounding Mauritius’ have had sightings of the Dodo, but I note that there have also been reported sightings on Mauritius itself. All rather intriguing!

Currently, the closest islands in this island group – the Mascarene islands – that are mentioned are a couple of hundred miles away from Mauritius (though perhaps there are smaller ones nearer by that Wikipedia doesn’t mention). However, these islands are all located on a shallaw plateau – the Mascarene plateau, that lies over a volcanic hotspot. The plateau is 2000km long, running from the Seychelles in the north all the way to the island of Reunion, south-west of Mauritius. But it is very shallow, just 8m to 150 deep, and there are many submerged banks that were previously islands and formed a succession of islands and larger islands. The areas of land that are now underwater became submerged by erosion and rising sea-levels at the end of the ice-age (18,000 to 6,000 years ago), ie. not long ago.

Because of this geology, the whole island group forms one ecological region, with many endemic species. There were no ground-living mammals, until the Europeans settlers came and introduced pigs, rats, cats and mongooses (who presumably out-competed the ground-living flightless Dodos).

Importantly, there were other flightless birds, including another species of flightless pigeon called the Rodrigues Solitaire (related to the Dodo and presumably living on the island of Rodrigues, 350 miles away) and a flightless ibis.

So, my conclusion is that the fact that Mauritious is an island, is no reason to rule out the possibility that a few small populations of flightless pigeons related to the Dodo may still exist on some of the other islands.

Sorry, guys, but unless the Dodo is a transdimensional entity that sometimes begs for scraps at the Carter farm, it’s extinct. Flightless birds find it hard to cross water, and if (as oldphilosopher states) they were not good to eat, seafaring humans would be unlikely to give them a lift (as we’ve done for chickens).

This sure “takes me back.”

Could there POSSIBLY be any chance of one of these birds being still around in some remote, obscure corner of the world?

Hopefully. Fingers crossed.

Time and time passes by, you and i
have to say goodbye
to a bird that used to live.
Which is why i have to give
my attention to this life
that i thought they’d never die.

I Have to see them sleep without breath.
I must take my time to caress
the wonders of this beautiful fowl
cause they’re all in a Museum now.

Fortunately, the Beatles didn’t change it to LOVERPUDLIANS!