The Whole Dodo

Dodo One - Dodo Two - Dodo Three - Return to the Story

A dodo composite: Some of its features come from a picture by Roelandt Savery, but with wings, tail and bill altered; others come from a picture rendered by Pierre Witthoos. Anatomical examination also contributed to the image. The dodo's tail is fantasy, having, in real life, been "curled over the back," according to Baron Lionel Rothschild writing in "Extinct Birds: An Attempt to Unite in One Volume a Short Account of Those Birds Which Have Become Extinct in Historical Time — That Is, Within the Last Six or Seven Hundred Years." Three hundred copies of the book containing this and other dodo illustrationswere printed in London in 1907. The KU Spencer Research Library Ellis Collection houses copy No. 119 of "Extinct Birds."