The Dodo used to walk around,
And take the sun and air.
The sun yet warms his native ground –
The Dodo is not there!
The voice which used to squawk and squeak
Is now for ever dumb –
Yet may you see his bones and beak
All in the Mu-se-um.
The Dodo has quite the reputation among extinct animals, but the image has always been a bit skewed. Most portarits are based either on third or fourth hand accounts, and most European depictions are from obese specimens kept by gentry that didn’t know how to care for them properly. Modern skeletal analysis now shows it was sleek, brown and quite aggressive.
When it comes to TV shows, a chance to make merchandise and thus more money is a major point. With the success of the Doctor Who figures based on the series, ITV’s own time travel based show, Primeval, attempted the same. It ran for the first two series, but no further.
If something is “as dead as a Dodo”, it is very dead, gone forever, reflecting on the fate of said animal, the Dodo. From the island of Mauritius, these flightless pigeons roamed the land, eating fruit and shellfish and lacking fear. Then man came along and introduced new predators, ones that Dodo’s lacked, and soon they were gone from their native lands, never to return.
Despite the progress we have made as a species, there is one fact we cannot change: extinction is forever. As a result of our hubris, many spectacular species have been wiped from the face of the earth. Takara have created quite an exquisite set, showing a selection of the species that have been lost of the centuries, each with a stand stating scientific names and year of extinction.
