Dodo bird skeleton up for auction

A rare dodo skeleton will be up for auction in Summers Place Auctions in West Sussex, England, in November 2016. It will be the first ‘almost complete’ skeleton of the extinct dodo bird for sale in nearly a hundred years. It will probably sell for a six-figure amount as an ‘icon of extinction.’

The dodo bird (Raphus cucullatus) was a flightless bird native to the island of Mauritius, and become extinct around 1680, less than 100 years after Europeans settled on the island in the Indian Ocean. The dodo could not swim, nor fly, and was bigger than a turkey and weighed 23 kilograms (50 pounds).

Generally the skeletons of dodo birds in museums are composed of composite bones collected from several dodo birds and reconstructed in the form of the bird. However, the private collector of this skeleton says it is almost complete – only lacking part of the skull and one set of claws. He has owned it from the early 2000s. This would make the skeleton exceptionally rare.

The majority of the bones in this skeleton were recovered from the Mare aux Songes swamp in southeastern Mauritius in the 19th century. The Mauritian government has now banned all exports of dodo bones. Only one dodo skeleton exists that is made from the bones of a single bird – and it is on display in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius.

About a dozen other skeleton specimens exist, but they are all composites of several dodo birds. The skeleton up for auction is 95% complete, and the first to be assembled since the early 20th century. It will be part of the fourth Evolution sale at the auction house in Billingshurst in England on 22 November 2016.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-37178288

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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