#Didyouknow? Fascinating facts in the history of Mauritius : The Dodo.
Sir Thomas Herbert, an English gentleman who landed in Mauritius on the 10th of June 1628, coming back from Persia was the first to call the dronte : Dodo, as derived from the Portuguese doudo, stupid. Endemic to the island, the dodo has become extinct by the end of the 17th century and is emblematic.
Sad and gloomy in appearance, the Dodo’s cry as asserted by Gauche was similar to that of a goose. The female laid only one egg at a time which was deposited on a heap of dry grass. The Dodo’s stomach was fiery and could digest stones to triturate the tough eatables upon which it lived, among which are the extremely tough pericarp of the Pandanus, it’s ordinary food.
The expression: ‘As dead as the Dodo’, means something that has disappeared entirely from the surface of the Earth!
Natur Lza
Main source: Extinct birds of the Mascarene islands by Albert Pitot – Mauritius Illustrated compiled and edited by Allister Macmillan
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