However there is every chance that she survived the long journey. Unfortunately there are no records confirming the dodo’s safe arrival. Altham’s bird sailed to England aboard a ship called The William, under the captaincy of a Mr Perce. Away from home for many years, he seems to have wanted the bird to become a new family pet and he wrote to his brother telling him to expect its delivery. However one possibility is that she left in around 1628, courtesy of the English diplomat Emmanuel Altham.Īround that time Altham sent a live dodo from Mauritius as a present to his family. We don’t know how old she was when she was captured and spirited away to Europe. This bird hatched from her mother’s single white egg on a grassy bed, deep in the forests of Mauritius. We can’t accurately pin down the gender of this individual, but the scant evidence suggests it was a female. For around 300 years the world’s only preserved dodo remains have resided at Oxford University. Today there is only one place you can see the face of a real dodo. ‘Even a long boiling would scarcely make them tender,’ reported a 17th- century Dutch ship’s captain. For possibly the last time in its existence, the dodo, a member of the pigeon family, was lucky. Until comparatively recently mankind’s first question on discovering any new species was, ‘what does it taste like?’ The answer to this question could be very important to the future of that species, making the difference between survival and extinction.
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