Dead as a dodo: the fortuitous rise to fame of an extinction icon

Today, the Dodo is the most famous species known to have been driven to extinction through human activity. However, it disappeared over a century before Cuvier demonstrated the reality of extinction, and was only one of a huge number of species that died out following early European expansion around the globe. Unlike many other now-extinct Mascarene species, the Dodo's decline and disappearance was not documented by contemporary observers. Repeated settlement changes on Mauritius during the seventeenth century led to protracted ‘cultural amnesia’ over its very existence, and it was widely regarded as mythical by European scientists into the nineteenth century. A series of scientific and socio-cultural hurdles, which all had to be overcome before a given species could be widely appreciated by the general public as an icon of human-caused extinction, are identified and assessed in order to understand how the Dodo returned from scientific death and achieved its tremendous posthumous celebrity. This review indicates that although some ecological and evolutionary factors may have given the Dodo an increased chance of becoming famous, these factors are offset by a much greater series of serendipitous events, emphasising the importance of contingence and the fundamental lack of inevitability in historical processes.

Keywords

• Raphus cucullatus ,
• contemporary interest,
• Mascarenes,
• historical extinctions