8/17/2023 0 Comments Real dodo bird skeleton![]() The head was a lighter grey than the body, with small, yellow eyes. On the end of the legs were four toes, three in front and one acting as a thumb in back, all with thick, black claws. The dodo's legs were short and stubby and yellow in color. Because it was flightless, those who saw the bird often thought it had no real wings at all, describing them as "little winglets." Study of the skeleton reveals, however, that the dodo did in fact have wings that were simply not used for flight, much like penguins' wings. It had small wings that were far too weak to ever lift the dodo off the ground. The dodo was a large, plump bird covered in soft, grey feathers, with a plume of white at its tail. From these records and pictures, scientists and ornithologists have pieced together a fairly detailed composite of the dodo. There are a few fossils excavated from the island, which are kept at the British Museum, and a foot and a beak which are preserved at Oxford, but there are no complete stuffed specimens (models in museums are based on partial remains). There are accounts from the diaries and writings of the sailors and captains who landed on Mauritius in the 16th and 17th century, drawings from the few humans who were able to witness them alive (although, it can't even be proven that all the artists who rendered the dodo ever actually saw one). Our present day knowledge of what the dodo looked like is based on several sources. However, the dodo made its home primarily in the forest. ![]() The island of Mauritius is home to a variety of biomes, such as plains, small mountains, forests, and reefs all along the shores. (Britannica, 1986)Īlthough many pictures and stories place the dodo along the shores of Mauritius, it was actually a forest-dwelling bird. ![]() Dodo birds were once the inhabitants of Mauritius, a small, oyster-shaped island which lies approximately 500 miles east of Madagascar.
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