Dodo skull with skin

Biological Object

Plaster cast of a skull of a dodo with skin. The dodo was a flightless bird endemic to the island of Mauritius. The first eyewitnesses of the dodo were a Dutch fleet led by Van Warwjick in 1598. Living isolated on an island, dodos were not exposed to any significant predators and lost all fear of potential enemies, including humans. This made them easy prey and led to their extinction within 100 years of their discovery. Dodos were about one meter tall and weighed about 20 kilograms. They fed on fruit and nested on the ground. With the extinction of the dodo, the tambalacoque (“dodo tree”) has also almost disappeared. Its seeds, which were mainly eaten by the dodos, could probably only germinate after they had passed through the dodo's digestive tract. The original of this plaster cast, the "Oxford Dodo", is in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. It was previously in the Ashmolean Museum, which got it from the Tradescants, two gardeners which were father and son. They had travelled the world collecting new and exotic plant specimens for the Earl’s gardens. On their travels, among other objects, they also collected zoological objects, including the stuffed body of a dodo. All that remains of it today is the head and foot, on display in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.