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Books about the Dodo

The books are listed in order of publication date with the most recent at the top.


For books about extinct birds see the;

Extinct Birds page

 

The Dodo and its Kindred

Or The History, Affinities, and Osteology of the Dodo, Solitaire, and Other Extinct Birds of the Islands Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Bourbon

Hugh Edwin Strickland

Cambridge Library Collection

Cambridge University Press

2015

"Well versed in natural history, particularly geology and ornithology, Hugh Edwin Strickland (1811–53) became fascinated by the dodo and mankind's influence on its extinction. Seeking to investigate this flightless bird and other extinct species from islands in the Indian Ocean, he invited the comparative anatomist Alexander Gordon Melville (1819–1901) to help him separate myth from reality. Divided into two sections, this 1848 monograph begins with Strickland's evaluation of the evidence, including historical reports as well as paintings and sketches, many of which are reproduced. Melville then analyses the osteology of the dodo and Rodrigues solitaire, describing his findings from dissections of the few available specimens and making comparisons with similar species. A seminal work, it correctly concluded that the dodo was more closely related to pigeons than vultures, and the book also inspired others to take up the search for new fossil evidence."

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The Dodo and the Solitaire: A Natural History

Jolyon C. Parish

Indiana University Press

2012

"The Dodo and the Solitaire is the most comprehensive book to date about these two famously extinct birds. It contains all the known contemporary accounts and illustrations of the dodo and solitaire, covering their history after extinction and discussing their ecology, classification, phylogenetic placement, and evolution. Both birds were large and flightless and lived on inhabited islands some 500 miles east of Madagascar. The first recorded descriptions of the dodo were provided by Dutch sailors who first encountered them in 1598 - within 100 years, the dodo was extinct. So quickly did the bird disappear that there is insufficient evidence to form an entirely accurate picture of its appearance and ecology, and the absence has led to much speculation. The story of the dodo, like that of the solitaire, has been pieced together from fragments, both literary and physical, that have been carefully compiled and examined in this extraordinary volume."

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Dodo Destiny: An American Eye On Mauritius

Tom Parker

Raconteurs Press

2012

"Dodo Destiny examines the sad tale of the dodo and the intriguing history of its native Mauritius, a beautiful island nation home to one of today's truly multicultural societies. The dodo is a universal symbol of extinction, yet little is known about the true nature of this vanished bird. Most people don't know that the dodo lived only on Mauritius, a small tropical island nation east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. Left undisturbed by humans, Mauritius and the dodo thrived until Europeans arrived in 1598. Less than 100 years later, the dodo and other island species disappeared in the wake of man. The dodo will never come back yet Mauritius and nearby islands are forging a new path in co-existence with not only man and the environment, but among religions and different races. The odd-looking dodo was just one of many unusual extinct species endemic to Mauritius and other islands in the Mascarene archipelago. Paradoxically, the site of history's most famous extinction is today home to some of the world's most successful conservation programs created to preserve surviving threatened species."

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The Oxford Dodo: The Sad Story Of The Ungainly Bird That Became An Oxford Icon

Oxford Museum of Natural History

2010

A 32 page booklet.

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The Lost Land of the Dodo

Anthony Checke

Poyser

2007

"The Mascarene islands, Mauritius, Reunion and Rodrigues, were once home to an extraordinary range of birds and reptiles. Evolving in the absence of mammalian predators or competitors, amazing forms such as giant tortoises, burrowing boas, flightless owls and herons, giant parrots, and, of course, the Dodo, dominated the land. Colonisation by European settlers led to dramatic changes in the ecology of the islands; the birds and tortoises were slaughtered indiscriminately while introduced pigs and monkeys destroyed their eggs, and the once-extensive forests were logged. A now-familiar emblem of extinction, the Dodo was gone within 60 years of the colonisation of its home, Mauritius, and over the next 150 years most of the Mascarene's other native vertebrates followed suit. The product of a lifetime of research by Anthony Cheke, "Lost Land of the Dodo" provides a comprehensive yet hugely enjoyable account of the story of the islands' ecology. The book is richly illustrated with maps and contemporary illustrations of the animals and plants, many of which have not been reproduced for hundreds of years….while Julian Hume's superb colour plates bring many of the extinct birds to life."

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Dodo: The Bird Behind the Legend

Alan Grihault

Imprimerie & Papeterie Commerciale

2005

"This book allows the reader to examine various eyewitness writings, drawings, paintings and skeletal remains, which depict the Dodo as it actually was, and helps us to understand how it was driven to extinction. It also traces what happened after the final demise of the bird, and how worldwide evidence was pieced together to provide a reasonable idea of how the Dodo lived and died."

Contents: 1.Mauritius, island of the Dodo; 2. Early accounts; 3. The last years of the dodo; 4. Digging for clues; 5. Dispatching live dodos; 6. The muse of artists; 7. What was the Dodo really like?; 8. The Dodo in its habitat; 9. Uncovering Dodo mysteries; 10. To which family did the Dodo belong?; 11. The other Dodos; 12. The fictional Dodo; 13. The iconic Dodo; Epilogue; Appendices; Bibliography.

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The Dodo and Mauritius Island: Imaginary Encounters

Harri Kallio

Dewi Lewis Publishing

2004

"In a fascinating reconstruction of the past, award winning Finnish photographer Harri Kallio uses his considerable photographic skill and imagination to create the illusion that these fascinating creatures are alive and abundant, living as they once did in their own unspoilt haven, the island of Mauritius. The island now attracts increasing numbers of tourists with its mix of beauty and diverse culture and Kallio's Dodos are featured in its landscape, near rivers, on mountains, in lush valleys and dense woodlands, undisturbed and blissfully unaware of the earlier human invasion which ultimately led to their extinction in the 17th century. The photographs are accompanied by a thorough history of the Dodo, including eyewitness accounts, pictorial sources and physical evidence from museums and libraries all over the world."

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The Dodo: The Bird That Drew the Short Straw

Jan Den Hengst

Art Revisited

2003

"Our impression of how the bird must have looked is entirely based on a number of seventeenth-century illustrations, all very different from each other. There are black, brown, and white dodos; thin and extremely fat ones; some are proudly erect and others crouching so low that they appear to be barely able to walk. Numerous books have been written in an attempt to explain these discrepancies. Writers have claimed to have discovered new species, have invented explanations for the differences in appearance and generally let their imagination run wild. They have only succeeded in confusing the situation still further. Jan den Hengst has been the first person to take the trouble to analyse and compare the seventeenth-century illustrations. He has studied the pictures for 25 years, with intriguing results. In addition, he has performed exhaustive research on the eye-witness accounts of the time, in order to reconstruct an accurate portrait of the dodo."

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Return of the Crazy Bird: The Sad, Strange Tale of the Dodo Bird

Clara Pinto-Correia

Springer-Verlag

2003

"Clara Pinto-Correia tells us the intriguing tale of a bird that has gone extinct but hasn't gone away. Unlike many of the dodologists before her, Pinto-Correia not only relates the fascinating story of the dodo, but draws a stunning picture of those who discovered, destroyed, immortalized, and, only much later, understood the dodo."

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The Dodo: A Brief History

Also appears to be called Dodo: From Extinction To icon

Errol Fuller

Universe

2003

"The extinction of the dodo from the shores of Mauritius followed closely upon the arrival of Dutch and Portuguese sailors on the island in the sixteenth century. This sad tale is outlined in the first chapter which provides a brief history of the dodo. The following chapters investigate the dodo's natural history through the use of historical documents, illustrations, paintings, old drawings, and literary sources. Its behavior is examined in quotes from the sixteen written reports produced by travellers to the island, and the anatomy of the dodo is investigated from the bone records kept by anatomists and naturalists from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.

The mythology surrounding the dodo has grown ever since it became extinct. Lewis Carroll's use of the dodo in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland elevated the bird to fantastical status and sparked a spate of dodo characters in newspapers, advertisements, and cartoons. In the fifth chapter, the author examines how man has incorporated the image of the dodo into literature and the arts, to become the powerful cultural icon that it is today.

The final chapters look more closely at two other dodo-like creatures: the Solitary from the island of Rodrigues and the legendary white dodo of the Réunion Island - which may have once existed or may simply be a figment of the imagination."

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The Dodo: Extinction In Paradise

Errol Fuller

Bunker Hill Publishing

2003

"The Dodo: Extinction in Paradise explores the science and the mythology, the history, archaeology, and legend, as well as the dodo's place in art and literature. The story of the dodo is a classic of evolution and extinction to equal, in fascination, that of the dinosaur or the sabre-toothed tiger. Unlike these, the dodo was the first recorded example of extinction, in all probability, entirely caused by humans. Humankind coexisted with the dodo between 1598 and 1681, and then the dodo was gone, hunted to extinction, unable to escape the new predators that arrived in ships on their isolated island later known as Mauritius."

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Extinct

Anton Gill and Alex West

Channel Four Books

2001

This book was published in conjunction with a 6 part TV series which recreated with animatronics and computer modeling the lives of the dodo, sabre-toothed tiger, great auk, Tasmanian tiger, Irish elk and woolly mammoth. The book describes the lives and extinction of these species and provides some information about the making of the series."

Contents: Introduction; Columbian Mammoth; The Concept; Sabre-toothed Tiger; Animatronics; Irish Elk; Locations; Dodo; Backplates; Great Auk; Computer Modelling; Tasmanian Tiger; Computer Animation; Bibliography.

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The Dodo and Kindred Birds; Or, The Extinct Birds of the Mascarene Islands

Masauji Hachisuka

H. F. and G. Witherby

1953

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The Dodo And Its Kindred

Or, The History, Affinities, And Osteology Of The Dodo, Solitaire, And Other Extinct Birds Of The Islands Mauritius, Rodriguez And Bourbon

H.R. Strickland and A.G. Melville

Plates: Vincent Brooks and others

Reeve, Benham And Reeve

1848

From the introduction:

"Among the many remarkable results connected with Organic Life which modern Science has elicited, the chronological succession of distinct races of beings is one of the most interesting. Geology exhibits to us the vast diversity of organized forms which have supplanted one another throughout the world's history, and in dealing with this remarkable fact, we are led to search out the causes for these exits and entrances of successive actors on the stage of Nature. It appears, indeed, highly probable that Death is a law of Nature in the Species as well as in the Individual; but this internal tendency to extinction is in both cases unable to be anticipated by violent or accidental causes. Numerous external agents have affected the distribution of organic life at various periods, and one of these has operated exclusively during the existing epoch, viz. the agency of Man, an influence peculiar in its effects, and which is made known to us by testimony as well as by inference. The object of the present treatise is to exhibit some remarkable examples of the extinction of several ornithic species, constituting an entire sub-family, through Human agency, and under circumstances of peculiar interest."
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Last updated August 2013