D'oh!
April 11, 2016 1:20 AM   Subscribe

The Dodo is extinct. But apparently not for the reasons we long believed. And those pictures of the bird we're used to seeing? Not so accurate. It's a tale of a tradition of Bad Science and the struggle to fix mistakes made long ago.
posted by oneswellfoop (28 comments total) 42 users marked this as a favorite
 
Great article! And a chance to post a link to one of my favorite short stories: "The Ugly Chickens" by Howard Waldrop.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 1:30 AM on April 11, 2016 [11 favorites]


So, less of a dodo than a dodon't.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:49 AM on April 11, 2016 [6 favorites]


Can we clone them back to life? Please?
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:50 AM on April 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


Obviously their bones were delicious, hence the lack of them!
posted by blue_beetle at 4:49 AM on April 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


New at Mauritius Benne & Jerrye's for 1603, it's Dodo Bone-Marrow and Coconut Frozen Yogurt, or Fro-Dodo-Bo-Mo-Coco-Yo.
posted by rory at 5:00 AM on April 11, 2016 [16 favorites]


Its extinction came long before scientists were willing to accept that species really could vanish forever. Why, they argued, would an all-powerful God doom some of his valuable creations to such a fate?

Somehow this particular passage strikes me as so much of human history and hubris in a nutshell.
posted by Kitteh at 6:16 AM on April 11, 2016 [16 favorites]


Note, that the same basic argument is currently being deployed against climate change. Rush Limbaugh stated it explicitly: "It is my devout belief in God that gives me every bit of confidence that man is not destroying -- and furthermore, cannot -- destroy the climate."
posted by sotonohito at 6:46 AM on April 11, 2016 [12 favorites]


Can we clone them back to life? Please?

Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that's how it always starts. Then later there's running and um, screaming.
posted by Etrigan at 6:53 AM on April 11, 2016 [14 favorites]


Can we clone them back to life? Please?

Maybe, but what then?
London School of Economics sociologist Carrie Friese fears that ethics have been left by the wayside in the rush to resurrect.

"My concern is that the focus is too much on: 'Can we do this?' rather than what we do with the living being that is the result," she said.

...

"An animal is more than its genome," said Friese. "How does a dodo learn to be a dodo?"
posted by filthy light thief at 7:12 AM on April 11, 2016 [7 favorites]


Given that we don't get too many dodo-related threads around here, I feel compelled to post this, and also this.
posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 7:15 AM on April 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that's how it always starts. Then later there's running and um, screaming

...as the dodos peck furiously at the heroes' knees. That spot just under the patella really smarts.

Jurassic Peck.
posted by rory at 7:27 AM on April 11, 2016 [11 favorites]


For me, the story of the dodo will always be the Goodies' version. (Full episode.)

(But this news story is good too. Thanks, oneswellfoop!)
posted by rory at 7:32 AM on April 11, 2016


I'd love one discussion of extinct animals that does not include comments about cloning referencing Jurassic Park.
posted by agregoli at 8:41 AM on April 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


So I shouldn't mention dino dodo DNA? (Sorry, my brain works in cultural and musical references. Oh, uh uh oh, it's unbelievable.)
posted by filthy light thief at 8:57 AM on April 11, 2016


filthy light thief: "Can we clone them back to life? Please?

"An animal is more than its genome," said Friese. "How does a dodo learn to be a dodo?"
"

Let it watch the 2016 Republican presidential debates.
posted by Splunge at 9:06 AM on April 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


Holy crap dodos were huge. For some reason I figured they were chicken size but that drawing of the guy clubbing the dodos shows them knee high and wikipedia confirms they stood a metre high.
posted by Mitheral at 9:17 AM on April 11, 2016


"Don't be such a dodo."

"Oh sure, blame the victim!"
posted by freecellwizard at 9:20 AM on April 11, 2016


I'd love one discussion of extinct animals that does not include comments about cloning referencing Jurassic Park.

I'm afraid that velociraptor left the enclosure a long time ago.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:56 AM on April 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


I wonder what the dodo evolved from - flamingos that grew happy and complacent on an island without predators?
posted by Flashman at 10:42 AM on April 11, 2016




The more accurate depiction of the dodo looks sort of like a dromeosaurid wearing a big funny beak.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:25 AM on April 11, 2016


I wonder what the dodo evolved from - flamingos that grew happy and complacent on an island without predators?

Pigeons, actually. This is the closest living relative to the dodo. Dodos weren't the only endemic pigeon species to Mauritius, either. The Mauritius blue pigeon went extinct in the 1830s, but the pink pigeon is still around today, albeit highly endangered.
posted by sciatrix at 11:41 AM on April 11, 2016 [3 favorites]


I'd love one discussion of extinct animals that does not include comments about the dodo.
posted by rory at 11:46 AM on April 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


So.... you're looking for that discussion in a thread specifically about the dodo?
posted by sciatrix at 11:47 AM on April 11, 2016


Dodos remind me of the first book I read by one of my favorite authors, Stanley Elkin. "The Dick Gibson Show" is the saga of a long-time 'radio personality' through different eras (it was recommended to me when I aspired to a radio career a few years after it was published). In one of the shortest and least-radio-oriented chapters, during World War II he is stationed in Mauritius, is told a story of how a past Japanese Emperor worshiped the dodo as a symbol of immortality (now quite ironic) and so, of course, Dick discovers a live dodo and is later ordered to kill it to keep it from falling into the hands of the 'Japs'. He ends up confronted by a patrol of angry Japanese soldiers, who surrender to him after the dead dodo he is carrying appears to rise from his arms "ominously". As he explains at the end of the chapter, "It's all in the wrists". It is.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:35 PM on April 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is the closest living relative to the dodo.

What a gorgeous bird.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 1:39 PM on April 11, 2016


So.... you're looking for that discussion in a thread specifically about the dodo?

My facetious paraphrase of agregoli's comment was about the futility of wishing away cultural references once they're this established. The Jurassic Park-free past is as dead as a you-know-what.
posted by rory at 2:33 PM on April 11, 2016 [2 favorites]


Let's clone some elephant birds.
posted by Apocryphon at 9:00 AM on April 12, 2016


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