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Animal profile
Raphus cucullatus
The dodo was a large flightless pigeon endemic to Mauritius, standing about a metre tall with a heavy hooked bill and reduced wings. It was described by Dutch sailors from 1598 and was gone within a century. No complete original specimen survives.
Illustrations made the dodo look like a fat, absurd creature of no clear kind. DNA from museum material placed it firmly within the pigeons and doves, closest to the Nicobar pigeon, and its nearest relative was another extinct island bird.
Genetic work on museum material places the dodo firmly inside the pigeon and dove family, with the Southeast Asian Nicobar pigeon as its nearest living relative. The bird was not a giant turkey or a peculiar ratite, but a columbid that lost flight on an island.