Abstract
The chronology of observations of two extinct flightless birds in 17th century Mauritius, the dodo (Raphus cucullatus) and the red hen (Aphanapteryx bonasia), and what names or descriptions were used for them, is re-examined. It was concluded that the balance of probabilities is strongly against birds called dodaarsen without descriptions in the 1680s being dodos rather than red hens. The dodo had disappeared earlier due to predation by pigs, but a hiatus in settlement broke observational continuity, yet folklore preserved the name and transferred it to the red hen. The dodo’s extinction thus happened unobserved.
Highlights
The arrival of humans has always had a devastating effect on island biotas [1], most disastrously on vicariant fragments of ancient Gondwanaland (New Zealand, Madagascar) and oceanic islands [2].While some places, such as Australia, have been subject to human influence and extinctions over tens of millennia [3], others were discovered and colonised so recently that the entire impact on the island has been chronicled
One of the first species to be impacted was the endemic dodo (Raphus cucullatus), a large flightless pigeon whose story illustrates both the rapid effects of invasive predators and the contemporary failure to perceive their impact, followed by slow realisation by 18th century European settlers of the changes that they were imposing on these new environments
They were described in travel books; a few specimens were brought alive to Europe by Dutch and English mariners, and even taken to India to be presented to the Mogul emperor Jahangir [4,5,6]
Summary
The arrival of humans has always had a devastating effect on island biotas [1], most disastrously on vicariant fragments of ancient Gondwanaland (New Zealand, Madagascar) and oceanic islands [2] While some places, such as Australia, have been subject to human influence and extinctions over tens of millennia [3], others were discovered and colonised so recently that the entire impact on the island has been chronicled. One such group is the Mascarene Islands (Mauritius, Réunion, and Rodrigues), far out in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar. One of the first species to be impacted was the endemic dodo (Raphus cucullatus), a large flightless pigeon whose story illustrates both the rapid effects of invasive predators and the contemporary failure to perceive their impact, followed by slow realisation by 18th century European settlers of the changes that they were imposing on these new environments
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