Daudi Dodo

To learn a bit more about myself and other dodos, here are five fun facts below. I’ve also made a puzzle for you, and finally there’s a lovely colouring sheet of Zeb, Oki and me at the Seven Coloured Earths.

Fun facts about Daudi and dodos:

• Zeb and Oki were surprised to meet Daudi, because the last report of a dodo on Mauritius is from 1662! Dodos became extinct because they were hunted for food by Dutch sailors. Also, their habitat was taken over by animals that were brought by humans to Mauritius, such as cats, dogs, rats, pigs, and macaques (a type of monkey).
• Dodos lived only on Mauritius and their favourite areas were the woods and the coasts of the south and west. Daudi enjoys spending time on a mountain called Le Morne Brabant, which is in the south-west of the island.
• Dodos ate nuts, seeds, roots, bulbs, and fruit that had fallen from trees. They used gizzard stones to help them digest their food. The gizzard of an animal is like an extra stomach. As dodos did not have teeth, they would swallow their food whole and then swallow a stone to mash up the food in the gizzard. Finally, the food would pass into their main stomach.
• Dodos could run quite fast, and if they heard a call for help from a fellow dodo they would all come running together. They also had very small wings and were unable to fly. Scientists think that the females laid just one egg at a time, in a nest on the floor of the forest. This meant that it was easy for monkeys to steal the eggs, as they weren’t very well hidden!
• Today, Daudi’s closest living relative is the Nicobar pigeon. This type of pigeon lives on the Nicobar Islands as well as in India and other places. It has a beautiful coat of emerald feathers, which shows all the colours of the rainbow when the sun shines on it. It also has a bright white tail!