![]() ![]() They found that 160 species of non-passerine land birds (non-perching birds which generally have feet designed for specific functions, for example webbed for swimming) went extinct without a trace after the first humans arrived on these islands alone. Professor Tim Blackburn, Director of ZSL's Institute of Zoology says: "We studied fossils from 41 tropical Pacific islands and using new techniques we were able to gauge how many extra species of bird disappeared without leaving any trace." But understanding the scale and extent of these extinctions has been hampered by uncertainties in the fossil record. Article originally on LiveScience.The paper was published today (March 25th) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Īlmost 4,000 years ago, tropical Pacific Islands were an untouched paradise, but the arrival of the first people in places like Hawaii and Fiji caused irreversible damage to these natural havens, due to overhunting and deforestation. "Although the difference is a bit academic," Jackson said, since the dodo is extinct either way, "I think it's a serendipitous spin-off to research."Įmail Douglas Main or follow him on Twitter or Google+. Harry's "ability as an observer is not the issue, he saw/ate a bird he was told by the locals was a 'dodo,' and naturally that's what he called it in his account this does not make him 'unreliable,'" Cheke wrote in an email.īut another scientist (and artist) who has studied the extinction of dodos, Julian Hume, said he believes that dodos went extinct by about 1690, and that Harry was certainly "no fool." However, it is "presumptuous for anyone to suggest what Harry did or did not see almost 350 years after the event," he added. By the 1660s, Cheke said, dodos had already gone extinct on the main island of Mauritius, and the name "dodo" had been transferred to a similar flightless species now known as a red rail. However, independent ornithologist Anthony Cheke said that he wasn't swayed by the study and maintains that the last reliable sighting of dodos was indeed on an island off Mauritius in 1662. "People didn't appreciate Harry was a great scientist, and his observations shouldn't be dismissed," Jackson said. But that record, combined with what Jackson calls Harry's high-quality work, suggests dodos were still around at this time, he said. But Harry's observations agree with those from another hunting journal from 1688 that recorded dodos being killed, although some have said that the term for dodo is too similar to another island bird to know for sure. Previously, however, some scholars had dismissed Harry's observations - since they were "anecdotal" and his other high-quality observations weren't well known - and it was generally thought that the dodo had vanished by 1662 from their last stronghold on an island off Mauritius, Jackson said. That didn't stop Europeans from hunting the flightless bird to extinction (though introduced pigs and possibly other invasive species also played a role). Among the feathery beasts being feasted upon were dodos, whose flesh, he noted, was quite hard. Jackson came across these writings while looking at Harry's magnetic field work. Harry also took notes in 1681 about what birds were being eaten near Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean east of Africa, while his ship was docked in the area. Though Harry is little-known, he shouldn't be, Jackson said: Besides his important and detailed geomagnetic recordings, he made detailed drawings of the Great Comet of 1680, one of the brightest in recorded history, which could be seen even during daytime and with the naked eye, for about three months.
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