Photo from open sources
On Tuesday, November twenty-second, for the first time in a century the sale of the skeleton of the extinct Mauritius dodo took place, also known as the dodo bird.
Bidding took place in the United Kingdom. Resulting remains were sold for four hundred thirty thousand dollars. This amount is even exceeded the expectations of the organizers of the London auction “Summers Place Auctions “, which suggested that the lot will go under the hammer for about three hundred seventy thousand.
The seller of the skeleton, as it turned out, collected several decades it by hand. Since the seventies, he himself resorted to bidding, remotely buying rare bones of the Mauritian dodo on auctions around the world. Previously, he used a telephone communication, recently – the Internet. The British had competitors slightly, because individual bones of a bird, albeit extinct, are valued not very high. Similarly, a man acquired everything cheaply. fragments of the remains of various adult individuals available to him and constructed from them more than ninety-five percent of the skeleton dodo.
In the Republic of Mauritius, on the island of the same name which this bird from a family of pigeons at one time, export of bones the Mauritius Dodo is currently strictly prohibited, therefore outside the island state such skeletons are today very rare. According to paleontologists, an anonymous Briton acted very cunningly and inventively, collecting a skeleton from various bones of many dodos and revealing to the world a kind of designer, for which, however, he was paid as for a full skeleton one individual.
A photo from open sources
Dodo, exclusively on Mauritius, for the first time noticed in 1598 the Dutch sailors. They made fun of meter tall bird for the fact that she could not fly and stand up for myself, and also completely not afraid of man. Travelers actively hunted for the dodo. In addition, the Mauritian dodo and their eggs began to destroy dogs, cats, rats, pigs and macaques, brought by sailors to the island. Last certificate of meeting with The Dodo dates from 1662. Thus, the bird died out in just sixty-four years after the appearance of man in her places habitat.
The Mauritius Dodo has long been considered a mythical creature, however, in the forties of the nineteenth century, zoologists examined several remains of the bird and realized that she really existed. The fact that after contact with a person the dodo became extinct in less than seven decades, forced the global scientific community to seriously worry about the issue of people’s involvement in disappearance rare species of animals. Today this mysterious bird is considered a kind of martyr among extinct animals.
The last time the remains of the Mauritian dodo were sold in 1914 year, and the last find of the skeleton of the dodo took place in 2005.
Bird Island Time
