Dodo code in the bones

Everyone knows about the death of the dodo, but no one knows much about its life.

Everyone knows about the death of the dodo, but no one knows much about its life. The stocky flightless bird became extinct at the end of the 1600s, less than two centuries after European explorers discovered its home, the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.

Beyond passing descriptions, little evidence of the bird has survived8212;a preserved skin here, an isolated leg bone there. In the last few weeks, however, a team of scientists has been exploring a trove of dodo fossils that may be as old as 3,000 years. Along with the dodos, the scientists have found fossils of other species of birds, reptiles, bats and numerous plants. 8216;8216;You name it, we8217;ve got it,8217;8217; Kenneth Rijsdijk, the team8217;s leader and a physical geographer at the Geological Survey of the Netherlands, said. 8216;8216;We8217;ve found the whole ecosystem.8217;8217;

The scientists expect the site to offer the first clear picture of the dodo8217;s ecological world before humans arrived. Once they arrived on Mauritius8212;non one knows where the dodo8217;s ancestors lived before then8212;dodos followed the same evolutionary path that other birds have taken on other islands. They became stocky and flightless as they adapted to feeding on plants. Said Dr David A. Burney, director of conservation at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawaii and a professor at Fordham University in New York: 8216;8216;Within a few million years these birds turned into the avian equivalent of pigs and goats.8217;8217;

Rijsdijk and Frans Bunnik, also of the Geological Survey of the Netherlands, found the dodo graveyard almost by accident. They went to Mauritius in October 2005 to look for evidence of the ecology on the island when Dutch settlers established a fort there in 1638. They searched for deposits of deep, undisturbed soil that might have preserved centuries of pollen grains and other vegetation.

The scientists discovered a number of sites. Their last visit was to a sugar plantation where isolated dodo bones were found in 1865. The bones had been found in a swamp called Mare aux Songes, but their precise location was never recorded. The manager of the plantation showed the scientists some test drilling cores that had been made in the 1990s. They were excited to see that they were rich in organic matter and even contained bone fragments from an extinct giant tortoise.

Rijsdijk and Bunnik made their way to the drilling site and worked an auger by hand through a layer rock. When they finally reached mud underneath, they reached into the hole and brought up tortoise bone fragments and a large seed from an endangered tree, the tambalacoque. The scientists then brought up scoopfuls of mud. 8216;8216;The first scoop was completely full of seeds, bones and wood debris,8217;8217; Rijsdijk said. 8216;8216;We were flabbergasted.8217;8217;

Rijsdijk took a team of international scientists to the site, where they began to pull out a wealth of fossils. The seven-acre tract is packed with dodo bones, some possibly belonging to chicks. The haul includes bones from two giant tortoise species, a giant lizard called a skink, a fruit bat, an owl, a rail and many other smaller birds. Based on the underlying geology of the site, Rijsdijk estimates it is 3,000 years old. More precise carbon dating is now under way.

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Some scientists are looking for ancient DNA, while others will analyse the bones to get clues to their diet. The scientists will present early findings at the University of Oxford in September. By understanding the Mauritius ecosystem before humans arrived, they hope to find clues to the dodo8217;s extinction. Dodos were easy to hunt, but hunting alone probably did not wipe them out. Recent research indicates the early Dutch settlers rarely ate dodo meat. Nor did the deforestation doom the dodo. 8212;CARL ZIMMER