Comments on: The Dodo http://woodpress.org/2007/03/21/the-dodo/ Woody Thrower's Blog Sat, 10 Sep 2011 04:04:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Woody Thrower http://woodpress.org/2007/03/21/the-dodo/comment-page-1/#comment-6275 Woody Thrower Thu, 22 Mar 2007 06:00:14 +0000 http://www.woodpress.org/2007/03/21/the-dodo/#comment-6275 <p>D'oh! Looks like they've been extinct longer than I realized. I thought the last of them died out at the end of the 19th century, but it turns out it was more like the end of the 17th century.</p> D’oh! Looks like they’ve been extinct longer than I realized. I thought the last of them died out at the end of the 19th century, but it turns out it was more like the end of the 17th century.

]]> By: Woody Thrower http://woodpress.org/2007/03/21/the-dodo/comment-page-1/#comment-6274 Woody Thrower Thu, 22 Mar 2007 05:52:57 +0000 http://www.woodpress.org/2007/03/21/the-dodo/#comment-6274 <p>I suspect this is the quote Thom was talking about: <blockquote> When Portuguese sailors arrived on Mauritius in 1507, the abundant dodos were completely tame, and approached the sailors in a trusting manner. Alas for trust. They were clubbed to death by Portuguese, and later Dutch, sailors - even though they were deemed "unpalatable". Presumably it was "sport". </blockquote></p> <p>I didn't find the original article online, but I did find <a href="http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/writings/ancestorstale.shtml" rel="nofollow">a page with an excerpt</a>.</p> I suspect this is the quote Thom was talking about:

When Portuguese sailors arrived on Mauritius in 1507, the abundant dodos were completely tame, and approached the sailors in a trusting manner. Alas for trust. They were clubbed to death by Portuguese, and later Dutch, sailors – even though they were deemed “unpalatable”. Presumably it was “sport”.

I didn’t find the original article online, but I did find a page with an excerpt.

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