Research Suggests Dodos Might Have Been Quite Intelligent
New research suggests that the dodo, an extinct bird whose name has entered popular culture as a symbol of stupidity, was actually fairly smart. The work, published today in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, finds that the overall size of the dodo’s brain in relation to its body size was on par with its closest living relatives: pigeons—birds whose ability to be trained implies they’re no dummies.
The dodo (Raphus cucullatus) was a large, flightless bird that lived on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, where they were last seen alive in 1662. When sailors discovered the island in the late 1500s, the dodo didn’t fear these new arrivals. That led to the birds being herded onto passing boats as an easy meal for passing sailors.
“Because of that behavior and invasive species that were introduced to the island, they disappeared in less than 100 years after humans arrived. Today, they are almost exclusively known for becoming extinct, and I think that’s why we’ve given them this reputation of being dumb,”said Eugenia Gold, the lead author of the paper, a research associate and recent graduate of the Museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School, and an instructor in the Department of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University.
