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.
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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