Turning the Book Wheel
The flightless dodo, Raphus cucullatus, was native to the island of Mauritius, in the south-western Indian Ocean. On 20 September 1598, a Dutch fleet commanded by Admiral Wybrant van Warwijck found a channel through the reef encircling Mauritius, and initiated the permanent settlement of the island. Less than a century later, the dodo was extinct, and other species followed rapidly.
Top: Illustration from Memoirs on the dodo by Sir Richard Owen, 1866.
Detail of a terracotta moulding of a dodo in the Waterhouse Building at the Natural History Museum, London.
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Dodo (Raphus cucullatus)
From Bilder-atlas zur Wissenschaftlich-populären Naturgeschichte der Vögel ( Atlas, or Volume of plates to Scientific and popular natural history of birds), by Leopold Joseph Fitzinger, Vienna, 1864.
(Source: archive.org)
Reblogging for a certain Assistant Director who loves Dodos.
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