Another little known fact about the Dodo was that an economically important tree on Mauritius was totally dependent upon the dodo. When it was realized that there was no new growth of this tree, for a few hundred years, a European scientist was dispatched to Mauritius to figure out how to get the trees fruit to germinate. He eventually had some turkeys brought to the island and fed them the fruit of the tree. Voila, after the seeds were excreted by the turkeys they started the germination process. It turns out that the trees relied upon the Dodos digesting the seeds to prepare its tough outer husk for germination. A classic example of how one species going extinct causes other species to also go extinct.
A very similar story here in North America with the near extinction of the Osage Orange Tree. It's an interesting story I'll leave you to discover yourself.
Volkert Evertsz: "We drove them together into one place in such a manner that we could catch them with our hands, and when we held one of them by its leg, and that upon this it made a great noise, the others all on a sudden came running as fast as they could to its assistance, and by which they were caught and made prisoners also." Sounds like another (but harder to prove) trait of the Dodo not mentioned in the video is their social cohesion. This likely also helped them survive as long as they did. Unfortunately, all we can go with for behavioral traits is accounts like these.
@@helenanilsson5666 If you're a sailor in that Era, you eat what you get and don't question it because you don't know when you're next fresh food is. If extinction wasn't a concept, then filling the pantry in whatever method possible over ruled fairness. Today? Yeah, evil. We have context and recognize animal pain/thinking is closer to ours.
@@helenanilsson5666 LMAO. I could describe modern cattle farming like this. "We drove the bovines across the plains so they might succor upon the fresh grass of the plateaus. We kept the herds prisoner and systematically bred them as they waited to be consumed. When our stores became low we brought a weapon to the herd and shot a great many of them with bullets through their heads. We systematically exterminated all the males, all of them save the hardiest and fullest of the bulls. He was left with the heifers to repopulate our prisoners." Sounds evil doesn't it. So why do we do it? its 2023 and we have the knowledge, awareness, and ability not to (unlike many people in the past) yet we do it. I wouldn't call it amazing. I think it's just human nature.
I honestly could care less about flighted birds, but I've always had a love for ground birds. It bothers me that most ground birds have died off at some point in human history, whether recent or prehistoric.
The dodo gets all the press, but there were also two nearby islands with similar birds that also went extinct: the Reunion solitaire and the Rodriguez solitaire. There were several other birds to disappear from these islands as well as from Mauritius. How sad they are not remembered.
In addition to rats and pigs, I read that humans introduced monkeys as well, which also ate the Dodo eggs. Also, I read that they weren't normally as fat as they're often portrayed, because the paintings were based off of a captive dodo that was massively overfed.
It's not the first time they talk about de-extinction in that way on this channel. And honestly it's one of the very few times where it could actually make sense. Dodos still have their ecological niche to fill. De-extinction is extremely counter-productive when long gone animals such as mammoths are mentioned. We're living in a different environment where they'd have to compete with living species. In many cases, de-extinction is the equivalent of geoengineering. It would likely cause more harm than anything, and it diverts ressources that could be used for preservation. And that's why it's still not a good idea to make dodo re-appear. But at least it's not a completely bad idea.
de-extinction for recently extinct animals and not something like, say, a dinosaur or animals from the plioscene, is generally more positively regarded. the recently extinct still have an ecological niche
I would love to hear about the geological and ecological history of the Indian peninsula/sub-continent. Like what creatures lived on it when it was it's own sub-continent.
AFAIK Indian subcontinent has amongst the worst fossil preservation record. There's really never been any significant discovery of from the subcontinent except for few cases here & there. This is especially sad considering that after modern day Africa, only India has the most diverse/complete megafauna alive.
@@adnannaemaz1989 Something to do with extremely poor natural conditions to support fossilization. It is very amusing & sad all at the same time. Someone can correct me if I am wrong -- we have never discovered a single fossil specimen of ancient human or any of its relative from India. Imagine not one!
Me too. Although I believe India regrettably has a very poor fossil record, much of it having been obliterated by the Deccan traps and other events. Still, I'd very much like to be wrong and learn more about what should be a fascinating 'Ark' of flora and fauna.
All this time, I didn't know the dodo was only on one island. I don't remember when I first learned about them, but they seem pretty pervasive in popular knowledge. Strange when they were only around humans for about 60 years in one small place. Glad for the chance to learn more!
Yeah, it’s crazy cause so many islands have specific unique evolutions of animals simply because of how evolution works. I’d recommend Casual Geographic’s videos on island evolution.
I truly dislike when people say "humans" Only one group of people have a track record destroying people, places, animals and land. Stop bringing All humanity into the bull of one set of destructive hybrids.😔
@@teramalik7260 Check where these sick inventions come from. Only one group of people keep coming up. Check who owns these companies, only one group of people keep coming up. Check the ones lobbying for the corrupt companies, only one group of people keep coming up. ONE GROUP OF PEOPLE, Not humans, NOT HUMANITY, JUST ONE GROUP OF PEOPLE. Yall made yall mess by yall self, now accept responsibility by yall self. Stop bringing everyone else into yall Bull 💩
Yeah I had no idea either! People talked about them like they lived all over Europe 🤦 Well, now I know lol. Fascinating! I feel like they really did become well ingrained in our social conscious for such a sort-lived and niche human experience
The evolution of elephants is something I’d love to see covered! Like what on earth drove the evolution of their trunks??? And there are so many weird extinct elephants!!!
Dodos look so bizzare and interesting that it's hard for me to believe they were once real animals. This is one of the few de-extinction candidates that I actually look forward to, if it ever happens. Especially because it's an island species, the dodo could be an interesting and contained study on de-extinction if we ever need to implement it
The video literally says Europeans were not directly responsible for killing the Dodo. Unless you mean because we introduced pigs and rats to the island, but that wasn't really predictable to the sailors.
I think that even if the dodos were brought back in today's world, they're going to be met with the same challenges they did back then: pigs and rats eating their eggs. So unless they're adapted to handle egg-eating mammals, either through new brooding or nesting behaviours or through aggressive adaptations, I think it's unlikely that they'll remain de-extinct for long
Similar to what they're doing with the mammoth, the "Dodo" we bring back wouldn't be a true Dodo, but likely a hybrid with a pigeon or dove for a mother. That being said, the DNA could possibly be engineered with the trait of laying more eggs at a time, or laying eggs more often. All speculation on my part.
Well it's not like they'd make a few and release them them into the wild hoping for the best. Doubtless that they'd be bred solely in captivity for quite a while.
Its cousin and neighbour form a nearby island, the Rodrigues solitaire, which suffered the same fate for the same reasons, does look closer to pigeons in its physical descriptions.
I'm from Mauritius and really glad that Eons decided to shed more light on this emblematic bird which, despite popular assumptions, is really a matter of pride to us 🇲🇺 🦤
If and when the dodo 🦤 is brought back from extinction they will need to remove the invasive species on Mauritius 🇲🇺 such as rats 🐀 mongoses pigs 🐖 and crab eating macaques to prevent them from causing their second extinction
As much I would like that, we should focus saving animals that are endangered. We can use genetic technology to help safe current living species that on the brink of extinction like rhinos, pangolins, and tigers
Well done PBS, nice to our work staged here and presented in a didactic great and appealing way! The dodo and it’s ecosystem represents an amazing study system to understand insular species evolution. We are currently working on some more novel insights on the dodo, we will keep you posted ;-) Warm regards dr Kenneth Rijsdijk
This is a similar story to what happened to the Goliath bird. The bird themselves were huge and formidable, so humans probably wouldn’t have wanted to mess with them due to the danger. But their huge eggs were a much easier target for people to steal.
my ancestor was named Willem bontekoe. he drew the dodo in his journal and it was later adapted into the famous stort of “the cabin boys of Willem Bontekoe” took place in the 1600s. this story inspired the east indian trading company which lead to more dutch travelers to the island.
@@wjenerou You should write an autobiography of Yourself, and Your family tree! Mine had Vikings, Noblemen, Slaves, Business Leaders, and Soldiers. Yours sound Awesome!! Explorers, and Writers. "Let not others hasten You towards a foolish path to follow in the footsteps of their own demise. Seek Your own True Path, for We All have a chance to govern Our own destinies!" I'm always writing random things like that.
@@thomassutherland2647 more like a fun fact that was relevant to the topic. i’m not necessarily thrilled of the connection to colonialism in the east. not my bag ya know
@@wjenerou one should never judge history from the lens of 21st century morality, our ancestral past can be a fascinating tale as is, shouldn't let Wokeness spoil the fun. Anyway thanks for sharing.
@@KunalNash not wokeness just like “hey if anyone’s going to throw any curses on a name just make sure it’s not me” i’m like struggling enough with out it haha
@@punishedwaluigi3518 Well, sometimes you got to work with what you have. If the choice is between starving to death or eating a horrible tasting but possibly nutritious meal, do you really have a choice to make at all?
That was an interesting episode. Could you do a series on other very very recently extinct animals? We are so used to them just being gone that we don't even look at them, perhaps passing over unique features we are not even aware of in favour of of what we think we know, as you were also demonstrating with the dodo, so a visit might bring these out. The auroch comes to mind; the Australian Thylacine. Wasn't the passenger pigeon unusual or special, too?. Eons' take on this is bound to be interesting.
A topic that would be interesting would be the repeated occurrence of saber-toothed predators within synapsids (mammalian and non-mammalian) along with how the saber-teeth are not all designed the same (especially with Thylacosmilus).
A spin off on this could be a video on the island biogeography of Pigeons. As a group, the Columbiforms have some amazing flight and navigation abilities and are thus able to island hop even over hundreds of miles of open ocean. Dozens of really cool pigeon species have evolved to do this. The Nicobar Pigeon at 4:40 is just one example.
As a Mauritian, I remember learning most of the points in the video in Primary school, aged 10. I feel the video is trying to portray these as recent discoveries. The video is great though, accurate and concise. Just want to point out that the ideas seem to be known from at least the 80's.
the ideas were known since the 80s, but many still argued against many of them until recently. This video uses the most recent studies and data because that is the most conclusive and INCLUSIVE of all the data gathered before. If you have a source from 1980 and a source from 2005 that confirms the 1980 hypothesis, you should share the 2005 one.
In terms of de-extinction, I can understand how we could bring them back to their habitat after removing all the pigs. But how the Dodo are we going to extract all the rats?
And that's the second major issue with de-extinction: either we keep such species in zoos and they become very expansive "meat toys" for our own hypocrite pleasure, or we have to spend so much ressources to re-introduce them in their environment that it feels very hypocritical to not devote such ressources to species that still live. If mad scientists manage to convince the public that we should de-extinct dead species, we might end up with deeply deranged and unstable ecosystems everywhere.
So sad what happened to the dodo. There’s a great book about mermaids that rescue extinct animals- the first one being the dodo. It’s called The Creatures of Legacy Isle.
I have seen this during my Elementary years. I remember the feeling when I read how humans basically wiped them out after a short time they visited the island. So sad and indignant I am.🙂
It makes me think of kiwi birds. Arguably they’re similar in a lot of ways: they lay one egg, and as ground dwelling birds adapted to an environment with no predators. Also, isn’t there a species of bird, I think it’s a sea shore bird that went extinct once, then the same ancestor that happened to still live, migrated there again and that extinct species re-evolved??
Our eyes have changed 3 major times. Our ears One major time. Touch is a variable. Smell, and Taste are hard to pinpoint, as it is an even greater variable than Touch, but for Both in large groups of people, maybe 3-4 times. I can taste what others can't even smell, can drop my heartbeat to almost Zero to stay underwater, survived being stabbed, shot, impaled, etc. Then again so have many others. We tend to save others, since We don't die that easily.
@@astick5249 Hmm.. I'm no doctor, but maybe seeing one might help. Not sure what / if things can done. In Trek, one character had no sense of taste, but could notice the texture of the food He ate.
@@thomassutherland2647 Its not, like missing, for example if i put my nose next to an air freshener i can smell that, and i seem to be perfectly fine at smelling campfires in general
I would like to know more about Maritime Archaeology sites around the Globe. Specifically those with finds of human settlements flooded by rising sea levels around 6500-6200 BCE. So, the coastal cities just off our shores, which were once home to our most recent ancestors. Doggerland is the one which keeps getting cited, but surely the global picture is far more varied than that prehistoric landscape which holds the secrets of almost a million years of human habitation.
I'd love an update on Dunkleosteus - now that it has shrunk. But please wait until there's some cool artwork to make comparisons by 😅 I think it would be a nice topic to discuss scientific evaluations - and a really cool case! 😄
I've been fascinated by the dodo ever since I first heard about it as a child and wished that there would turn out to be a hidden pocket or two of survivors. This is one creature I'd really like to see returned to the land of the living!
There was an interesting science fiction story about a scientist who hears of a pair that had been brought back on a ship and one of the hands had taken a pair and bred them on his farm in the south. The story follows the scientists search to learn that it was true, and try and track them down.
Well, that was a nothingburger. It used to be thought that they were pigeons that adapted for life in an island, which made their demise inevitable once predators from the mainland arrived, and we should feel guilty about that. Now, however, we realize that they were pigeons that adapted for life in an island, which made their demise inevitable once predators from the mainland arrived, and we should feel guilty about that. Thanks for keeping us abreast of the important changes, PBS.
Full skeletons now exist and they tell of a tough life on an island with a harsh environment. Most Eons episodes can only surmise as much. The dodo is an unusual topic because there are written accounts about its behavior.
The Dodo has always seemed a little bit spooky to me. Because of its status as a symbol of extinction, the story of the Dodo was used to explain what extinction was and how it happens when I was a child in school. We would often see artistic depictions of animals in books and things, and the Dodo was commonly included in these, usually in the background or off to one side. And it always gave me a creepy feeling, like here was this strange animal, where it should not be, reminding us of just how fragile life can be.
Wow, I had no idea that the dodo was so complex! Kinda shows the hubris of our ancestors when it came to asserting things with little to no evidence, haha. The dodo's one of the few animals that I'd totally be on board with in terms of de-extinction since we kinda were the ones that did them in, even if indirectly. Like, that was our bad lmao
And once we remove rats and pigs (which has been achieved on other islands, and is something we should do anyway to protect any species still there), they would fully have a niche to go back to! And since so many bones have been found, I'm hoping there's enough individuals to get DNA from in order to make a viable population. You'd need a minimum of 10 individuals, but more is definitely better.
Where did you find that map at 1:02, and more importantly, where can I find it? It's so great, it really makes you see the world differently, and understand it better. I want one...
Interesting video, thank you! Poor dodo.... I really hope they can bring it back. I'd like a video on why it's now thought t-rex had lips that covered their teeth! 🦖
You’re lucky. The channel E.D.G.E. has posted a video explaining the t-rex lips debate just yesterday. I’ll post a link in a separate comment because RUclips tends to delete posts with links.
Another little known fact dodos weren’t stupid they were actually very intelligent birds the only reason they would approach a human it’s probably because they have never seen one before.
“Dodos have become a prime candidate for the concept of de-extinction. The possibility of bringing it back is seriously being explored.” Ark players: WOOOO, YEAH BABY! THATS WHAT I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR! THATS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT WOOO!
The rat thing actually doesn’t surprise me because that’s the same reason the Tuatara is now critically endangered! Ecosystems are so delicate and complex in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. It’s impossible to take one species out without having a domino effect throughout.
I want to know about the story of the eye. How important is our eye in our evolution as a species. How does this work and determine the genetics and biology of other species? We can say that we have this eye because of our anatomy or our anatomy derived from the eye that we have? Regards from Brazil!!!
Very nice clarification! Would love to see the Dodo or a hybrid of it coming back! Honestly, it is fair, because we're reversing the damage we've done.
Wait...wait...people didn't think about extiction on the 17th century? They didn't realize that if you kill all of a certain animal, then there would be no more of said animal? Where did they think animals came from? That they would just respawn somewhere? The server would just reset and they would be back?
The idea that you couldn't kill an animal population in its entirety is a concept based in religion. All of the creatures on the earth were placed here by God, for human beings to use and exploit was how the thinking went. To suggest extinction was to suggest that human beings could exhaust God's grace. It was considered the height of arrogance to suggest since if we could exhaust something God gave us, it would put us above God in a way. It was thought impossible to ever be able to exhaust God's bounty. It seems alien to us today (and it was entirely incorrect), but one has to remember that genuine belief in a creator was much more commonplace than today, even amongst the scientists of the time.
Humans do not have senses of an environment on a grand scale. That requires years of research by teams of people, map making, statistics, and all kinds of information hungry sailors on a temporary stop over would not be capable of realizing. Also, an island population has much less resilience than a continental population, which is not obvious until after the fact. This was early in the Age of Exploration so human impact on uninhabited islands would have been an unpondered concept. The Endangered Species Act in the U.S. wasn't passed until 1973, and, to this day, people regularly kill rare creatures on their property rather than have to deal with its regulations. In the moment, extinction is often not people's priority.
I was very excited when I heard that most of what we were taught about Dodos was wrong and that it was overhauled in 2005... then you restated everything I'd been taught about Dodos since the 80s so I'll just caulk it up to hallucinations of the future again
Personally, i suspected a situation years back. Rats have a terrible track record. I would love to see this specific creature brought back much more than bring back the mammoth
The fact that the dodo only laid one egg and species introduced to the island caused their extinction has been known for a very long time. The 2005 discovery only showed that dodos were well adapted to their environment.
showing that they were well adapted to their environment is a extremely important part of CONFIRMING that it was indirectly the affect of humans and not "inevitable" like people still argued. In hindsight now yes thats all it added but at the time it settled many ongoing debates
I agree, it’s an important discovery. My point is that the story we were all told about the Dodo Bird’s extinction is pretty much spot on. The reasons for it haven’t changed.
6:13 How is that us humans didn't directly doom the dodo? Without us introducing these species to the island these birds would likely still be alive today? Are u saying simply that humans didn't kill every dodo, but we released all the species that did? That just seems like a contradiction in logic to me. I just don't understand how we aren't the direct cause of the dodo going extinct when a pig or a rat would have never naturally made it to this island without human intervention.
Yeah, the way he said it is the equivalent to plugging a usb with a virus into someone's PC and trying to say it was the virus that cooked their system lol. It's incredible disingenuous or stupid to claim that Humans aren't at fault here.
The idea of de-extinction is amazing and I sincerely hope I live long enough to see it come to fruition for species that have been gone for decades, centuries, and even millennia.
Bringing back dodos, along with the mammoth, wooly rhino, Tasmanian tiger etc never seems to get much past the "hey, wouldn't it be cool if" stage, but here's hoping.
It would be a terrible idea to bring back mammoths and wooly rhinos. They'd replace living species in ecological niches that may not even exist anymore. There's an argument for species that disappeared not that long ago, but still: why spend ressources in bringing back species when we don't even protect effectively those that are sill alive?
Another little known fact about the Dodo was that an economically important tree on Mauritius was totally dependent upon the dodo. When it was realized that there was no new growth of this tree, for a few hundred years, a European scientist was dispatched to Mauritius to figure out how to get the trees fruit to germinate. He eventually had some turkeys brought to the island and fed them the fruit of the tree. Voila, after the seeds were excreted by the turkeys they started the germination process. It turns out that the trees relied upon the Dodos digesting the seeds to prepare its tough outer husk for germination. A classic example of how one species going extinct causes other species to also go extinct.
Most interesting, thank you.
I remember reading a paper on this! I’m surprised no videos I am aware of have covered this interesting fact. Thank you for bringing it up.
Wow! That's so cool! Thank you for the fact
A very similar story here in North America with the near extinction of the Osage Orange Tree. It's an interesting story I'll leave you to discover yourself.
@@rodchallis8031Tease.
Volkert Evertsz: "We drove them together into one place in such a manner that we could catch them with our hands, and when we held one of them by its leg, and that upon this it made a great noise, the others all on a sudden came running as fast as they could to its assistance, and by which they were caught and made prisoners also."
Sounds like another (but harder to prove) trait of the Dodo not mentioned in the video is their social cohesion. This likely also helped them survive as long as they did. Unfortunately, all we can go with for behavioral traits is accounts like these.
Honestly, on an island with no big predators, that could've really made them well adapted to actually bully the other animals lol
It's amazing that someone could write that account and then not follow with "I wonder if we might be evil".
@@helenanilsson5666 If you're a sailor in that Era, you eat what you get and don't question it because you don't know when you're next fresh food is. If extinction wasn't a concept, then filling the pantry in whatever method possible over ruled fairness. Today? Yeah, evil. We have context and recognize animal pain/thinking is closer to ours.
@@helenanilsson5666 LMAO. I could describe modern cattle farming like this. "We drove the bovines across the plains so they might succor upon the fresh grass of the plateaus. We kept the herds prisoner and systematically bred them as they waited to be consumed. When our stores became low we brought a weapon to the herd and shot a great many of them with bullets through their heads. We systematically exterminated all the males, all of them save the hardiest and fullest of the bulls. He was left with the heifers to repopulate our prisoners."
Sounds evil doesn't it. So why do we do it? its 2023 and we have the knowledge, awareness, and ability not to (unlike many people in the past) yet we do it. I wouldn't call it amazing. I think it's just human nature.
@@helenanilsson5666 don't you eat meat?
As a bird lover it always breaks my heart to hear about the dodos. It would have been a truly unique and marvelous bird to see.
I hope I’m still alive to see one in real life. Stuff like this makes me way too happy.
@@KristineLevineComedy It won't be the same. but, maybe it will be close enough to be worth it.
I hope we get to make it up to the Great Auk if we're bringing back birds.
I honestly could care less about flighted birds, but I've always had a love for ground birds. It bothers me that most ground birds have died off at some point in human history, whether recent or prehistoric.
Every species is unique...
The dodo gets all the press, but there were also two nearby islands with similar birds that also went extinct: the Reunion solitaire and the Rodriguez solitaire. There were several other birds to disappear from these islands as well as from Mauritius. How sad they are not remembered.
Favoritism? Perhaps more studying went into the extinct dodos?
their is no proof on a solitaire in Reunion Island. But it was probably an ibis
If you guys haven’t yet, could you do a video about why pigs seem so well adapted for everywhere
Generalist species usually are. Same as rats and pigeons, if they are willing to eat anything and give birth by big bunches, they are good to go
Generalists are pretty good
my default assumption is blabla mammal brain blabla mammal fur blabla
@@UnshavenStatue I think its more that they can simply just eat anything at all
They can and will eat anything and have enough bulk and fight that most predators don’t want to mess with them.
They are like dogs but better.
In addition to rats and pigs, I read that humans introduced monkeys as well, which also ate the Dodo eggs. Also, I read that they weren't normally as fat as they're often portrayed, because the paintings were based off of a captive dodo that was massively overfed.
This is one of the few times I've seen de-extinction being reported in a positive way
It's not the first time they talk about de-extinction in that way on this channel. And honestly it's one of the very few times where it could actually make sense. Dodos still have their ecological niche to fill.
De-extinction is extremely counter-productive when long gone animals such as mammoths are mentioned. We're living in a different environment where they'd have to compete with living species.
In many cases, de-extinction is the equivalent of geoengineering. It would likely cause more harm than anything, and it diverts ressources that could be used for preservation. And that's why it's still not a good idea to make dodo re-appear. But at least it's not a completely bad idea.
I wish they'd said more about it. Like, how?
@@Ezullof De-extinction should be for animals that are more recent, such as the Thylaciene and Dodos.
de-extinction for recently extinct animals and not something like, say, a dinosaur or animals from the plioscene, is generally more positively regarded. the recently extinct still have an ecological niche
@@Ezullof De extinction of the passenger pigeon would have a devastating effect on our agricultural system.
I would love to hear about the geological and ecological history of the Indian peninsula/sub-continent. Like what creatures lived on it when it was it's own sub-continent.
This. Especially when you consider india was a floating island for a very long time after splitting up with Africa.
AFAIK Indian subcontinent has amongst the worst fossil preservation record. There's really never been any significant discovery of from the subcontinent except for few cases here & there. This is especially sad considering that after modern day Africa, only India has the most diverse/complete megafauna alive.
@@KunalNash wow didn’t realise this. You gotta source I would love to read up on this.
Wonder what the reason is?
@@adnannaemaz1989 Something to do with extremely poor natural conditions to support fossilization. It is very amusing & sad all at the same time. Someone can correct me if I am wrong -- we have never discovered a single fossil specimen of ancient human or any of its relative from India. Imagine not one!
Me too. Although I believe India regrettably has a very poor fossil record, much of it having been obliterated by the Deccan traps and other events.
Still, I'd very much like to be wrong and learn more about what should be a fascinating 'Ark' of flora and fauna.
All this time, I didn't know the dodo was only on one island. I don't remember when I first learned about them, but they seem pretty pervasive in popular knowledge. Strange when they were only around humans for about 60 years in one small place. Glad for the chance to learn more!
Yeah, it’s crazy cause so many islands have specific unique evolutions of animals simply because of how evolution works. I’d recommend Casual Geographic’s videos on island evolution.
I truly dislike when people say "humans"
Only one group of people have a track record destroying people, places, animals and land.
Stop bringing All humanity into the bull of one set of destructive hybrids.😔
@@teramalik7260 Check where these sick inventions come from.
Only one group of people keep coming up.
Check who owns these companies, only one group of people keep coming up.
Check the ones lobbying for the corrupt companies, only one group of people keep coming up.
ONE GROUP OF PEOPLE,
Not humans, NOT HUMANITY,
JUST ONE GROUP OF PEOPLE.
Yall made yall mess by yall self, now accept responsibility by yall self.
Stop bringing everyone else into yall Bull 💩
All this time i thought dodo lived in new zealand im so stupid hha
Yeah I had no idea either! People talked about them like they lived all over Europe 🤦 Well, now I know lol. Fascinating! I feel like they really did become well ingrained in our social conscious for such a sort-lived and niche human experience
The evolution of elephants is something I’d love to see covered! Like what on earth drove the evolution of their trunks??? And there are so many weird extinct elephants!!!
And there is a mouse sized ancestor with a prehensile nose… (the Somali Sengi).
Dodos look so bizzare and interesting that it's hard for me to believe they were once real animals. This is one of the few de-extinction candidates that I actually look forward to, if it ever happens. Especially because it's an island species, the dodo could be an interesting and contained study on de-extinction if we ever need to implement it
They seemed like the perfect birds to tame. But history had its own course and time line. 😢
another destruction by european in the mission of gold, glory, and gospel
Just have chickens brah
Just like pigeons but we hate them for some reason 😢
The video literally says Europeans were not directly responsible for killing the Dodo.
Unless you mean because we introduced pigs and rats to the island, but that wasn't really predictable to the sailors.
@@dundee6402 it’s not the same😭😢
I think that even if the dodos were brought back in today's world, they're going to be met with the same challenges they did back then: pigs and rats eating their eggs. So unless they're adapted to handle egg-eating mammals, either through new brooding or nesting behaviours or through aggressive adaptations, I think it's unlikely that they'll remain de-extinct for long
Similar to what they're doing with the mammoth, the "Dodo" we bring back wouldn't be a true Dodo, but likely a hybrid with a pigeon or dove for a mother. That being said, the DNA could possibly be engineered with the trait of laying more eggs at a time, or laying eggs more often. All speculation on my part.
Well it's not like they'd make a few and release them them into the wild hoping for the best. Doubtless that they'd be bred solely in captivity for quite a while.
I doubt they'd even act like dodos because they'd have to be raised by ordinary pigeons.
Just mix their genome with that of the cassowary and they'll be good. #revengeofthedodo 😉
@@jeffreygao3956 They would have to be raised by something closer in behaviour than pidgeons. Turkeys maybe?
Its cousin and neighbour form a nearby island, the Rodrigues solitaire, which suffered the same fate for the same reasons, does look closer to pigeons in its physical descriptions.
I'm from Mauritius and really glad that Eons decided to shed more light on this emblematic bird which, despite popular assumptions, is really a matter of pride to us 🇲🇺 🦤
I really hope they bring it back someday.
If and when the dodo 🦤 is brought back from extinction they will need to remove the invasive species on Mauritius 🇲🇺 such as rats 🐀 mongoses pigs 🐖 and crab eating macaques to prevent them from causing their second extinction
As much I would like that, we should focus saving animals that are endangered. We can use genetic technology to help safe current living species that on the brink of extinction like rhinos, pangolins, and tigers
Yup,along with the mammoth & thylacine.
@@shaider1982 Lets not tempt God.
@@Riftrender Shut up.
Well done PBS, nice to our work staged here and presented in a didactic great and appealing way! The dodo and it’s ecosystem represents an amazing study system to understand insular species evolution. We are currently working on some more novel insights on the dodo, we will keep you posted ;-) Warm regards dr Kenneth Rijsdijk
Finally your channel mentioned the Dodo bird! As a Mauritian, I proud of my national bird.
It’s always a better day when eons posts !!!!!!!! Y’all make my day every time
This is a similar story to what happened to the Goliath bird. The bird themselves were huge and formidable, so humans probably wouldn’t have wanted to mess with them due to the danger. But their huge eggs were a much easier target for people to steal.
my ancestor was named Willem bontekoe. he drew the dodo in his journal and it was later adapted into the famous stort of “the cabin boys of Willem Bontekoe” took place in the 1600s. this story inspired the east indian trading company which lead to more dutch travelers to the island.
my name is william charles-bontekoe jenerou
@@wjenerou You should write an autobiography of Yourself, and Your family tree! Mine had Vikings, Noblemen, Slaves, Business Leaders, and Soldiers. Yours sound Awesome!! Explorers, and Writers. "Let not others hasten You towards a foolish path to follow in the footsteps of their own demise. Seek Your own True Path, for We All have a chance to govern Our own destinies!" I'm always writing random things like that.
@@thomassutherland2647 more like a fun fact that was relevant to the topic. i’m not necessarily thrilled of the connection to colonialism in the east. not my bag ya know
@@wjenerou one should never judge history from the lens of 21st century morality, our ancestral past can be a fascinating tale as is, shouldn't let Wokeness spoil the fun. Anyway thanks for sharing.
@@KunalNash not wokeness just like “hey if anyone’s going to throw any curses on a name just make sure it’s not me” i’m like struggling enough with out it haha
**20 years from now**
"Welcome...to Dodo Park!"
*"They're moving in herds...they DO move in herds..."*
*wipes tears with passenger pigeon
My first thought, when it was stated that more bones had been found, was that someone is going to try to bring it back.
One of the Dutch names for the Dodo was ‘Walgvogel’ (Disgusting Bird) because their meat seamed to have been tough and horrible.
“wow this bird tastes horrible, better keep eating it”
@@punishedwaluigi3518 Well, sometimes you got to work with what you have. If the choice is between starving to death or eating a horrible tasting but possibly nutritious meal, do you really have a choice to make at all?
@@punishedwaluigi3518would you rather starve to death?
typical colonizer mindset. It is horrible, disgusting, but they still want it. They dehumanize it so that they don't feel bad later.
That was an interesting episode. Could you do a series on other very very recently extinct animals? We are so used to them just being gone that we don't even look at them, perhaps passing over unique features we are not even aware of in favour of of what we think we know, as you were also demonstrating with the dodo, so a visit might bring these out. The auroch comes to mind; the Australian Thylacine. Wasn't the passenger pigeon unusual or special, too?. Eons' take on this is bound to be interesting.
I imagine the portuguese word you mentioned is probably “Doido”. Today it has much lighter conotation that it used to have
A topic that would be interesting would be the repeated occurrence of saber-toothed predators within synapsids (mammalian and non-mammalian) along with how the saber-teeth are not all designed the same (especially with Thylacosmilus).
Nothing breaks my heart more than extinction
Especially when it's our fault...
@X-WHOwell yeah. Everything died sooner or later.
A spin off on this could be a video on the island biogeography of Pigeons. As a group, the Columbiforms have some amazing flight and navigation abilities and are thus able to island hop even over hundreds of miles of open ocean. Dozens of really cool pigeon species have evolved to do this. The Nicobar Pigeon at 4:40 is just one example.
As a Mauritian, I remember learning most of the points in the video in Primary school, aged 10. I feel the video is trying to portray these as recent discoveries.
The video is great though, accurate and concise.
Just want to point out that the ideas seem to be known from at least the 80's.
the ideas were known since the 80s, but many still argued against many of them until recently. This video uses the most recent studies and data because that is the most conclusive and INCLUSIVE of all the data gathered before. If you have a source from 1980 and a source from 2005 that confirms the 1980 hypothesis, you should share the 2005 one.
Nice way to give people some credit while keeping your superiority in check. Lol
@Jub don't even bother with people like this. They are always looking for ways to sound smarter than everyone. You're really nice though
I comment to boost the video's stats for the RUclips algorithm and to let y'all know I enjoy this channel and how it does me an educate, yes.
In terms of de-extinction, I can understand how we could bring them back to their habitat after removing all the pigs. But how the Dodo are we going to extract all the rats?
And that's the second major issue with de-extinction: either we keep such species in zoos and they become very expansive "meat toys" for our own hypocrite pleasure, or we have to spend so much ressources to re-introduce them in their environment that it feels very hypocritical to not devote such ressources to species that still live.
If mad scientists manage to convince the public that we should de-extinct dead species, we might end up with deeply deranged and unstable ecosystems everywhere.
Rat eradication has been achieved on small islands before so it's possible on Mauritius
I'm sure people would like rat removal too lol
5:09 that is an emu, it lives in Australia, it evolved in an environment very full of predators and it is more than capable of holding its own
So sad what happened to the dodo. There’s a great book about mermaids that rescue extinct animals- the first one being the dodo. It’s called The Creatures of Legacy Isle.
Wow..this sounds like a beautiful book. I'll have to check it out
Excuse me, but I watched ALL of the Ice Age movies, so I think I am an expert on dodos thank you very much!
😂😂😂😂😂 Me too!!!
But they only appeared in the first one
I went to the first movie's "Tae Kwon Do-Do" scene the minute I saw this video title...
I would be interested in learning more about how Polar Bears diversified from brown bears in Alaska. Love the show!
I hope you make an episode about the Takahe too.
Is it extinct also? Thanks
@@ethimself5064 Not yet, but it is endangered and close to extinction.
@@Theonetrueerenyeager 👍
I have seen this during my Elementary years. I remember the feeling when I read how humans basically wiped them out after a short time they visited the island. So sad and indignant I am.🙂
It’s amazing how of all the extinct species this one is so unforgettable and is the one we would all vote to bring back.
Everything I read as a kid, said "they were too tasty!" Lol (prob true tho!)😊
@@merannicuill6435actually, apparently according to sailors they tasted quite bad
It makes me think of kiwi birds. Arguably they’re similar in a lot of ways: they lay one egg, and as ground dwelling birds adapted to an environment with no predators.
Also, isn’t there a species of bird, I think it’s a sea shore bird that went extinct once, then the same ancestor that happened to still live, migrated there again and that extinct species re-evolved??
Absolutely fascinating, thank you!
Hello 👋
I wonder if de-extinction of a bird (with external embryo development) is easier than a mammal (with internal development)
I've always wanted an Eons miniseries about the evolution of the different senses. How and when and how many times did eyes evolve? Etc.
Our eyes have changed 3 major times. Our ears One major time. Touch is a variable. Smell, and Taste are hard to pinpoint, as it is an even greater variable than Touch, but for Both in large groups of people, maybe 3-4 times. I can taste what others can't even smell, can drop my heartbeat to almost Zero to stay underwater, survived being stabbed, shot, impaled, etc. Then again so have many others. We tend to save others, since We don't die that easily.
Eyes, at least complex eyes have evolved many times. I'm not so familiar with the origin of eye spots and the like.
@@thomassutherland2647 I can barely smell anything, yet my sense of taste seems to be fine.
@@astick5249 Hmm.. I'm no doctor, but maybe seeing one might help. Not sure what / if things can done. In Trek, one character had no sense of taste, but could notice the texture of the food He ate.
@@thomassutherland2647 Its not, like missing, for example if i put my nose next to an air freshener i can smell that, and i seem to be perfectly fine at smelling campfires in general
The Dodo looks more like a Dino than pigeons.
Birds ARE dinosaurs
Also, having updates on some of the early Eons episodes would be cool!
EoNews
(lol 😅 or a better name 😅)
Wow that was just beautiful information. Thanks for your hard work ✌️
One of the most iconic creatures we ever brought to extinction ❤
The wildest thing is that my Professor co-wrote that paper! What a flex for your work to end up in a PBS Eons vid!
I would like to know more about Maritime Archaeology sites around the Globe. Specifically those with finds of human settlements flooded by rising sea levels around 6500-6200 BCE. So, the coastal cities just off our shores, which were once home to our most recent ancestors. Doggerland is the one which keeps getting cited, but surely the global picture is far more varied than that prehistoric landscape which holds the secrets of almost a million years of human habitation.
I'd love an update on Dunkleosteus - now that it has shrunk. But please wait until there's some cool artwork to make comparisons by 😅 I think it would be a nice topic to discuss scientific evaluations - and a really cool case! 😄
Have not watched, quick google search: Dunkleosteus - Smaller and Rounder Than Expected? from Henry the PaleoGuy (youTube video)
Wow this was incredibly interesting! Thanks for this updated information on the dodo.
Can we get Blake’s workout routine? Looking good man! Hit that PR
I've been fascinated by the dodo ever since I first heard about it as a child and wished that there would turn out to be a hidden pocket or two of survivors. This is one creature I'd really like to see returned to the land of the living!
There was an interesting science fiction story about a scientist who hears of a pair that had been brought back on a ship and one of the hands had taken a pair and bred them on his farm in the south. The story follows the scientists search to learn that it was true, and try and track them down.
Fascinating! Thank you PBS Eons
This is such a sad extinction.
I didn’t think they would a video about this animal since it recently went extinct.
I dunno if you've done this before, but I'm very curious how gills evolved into the structures they have as the first jawed fishes came into being.
Well, that was a nothingburger.
It used to be thought that they were pigeons that adapted for life in an island, which made their demise inevitable once predators from the mainland arrived, and we should feel guilty about that.
Now, however, we realize that they were pigeons that adapted for life in an island, which made their demise inevitable once predators from the mainland arrived, and we should feel guilty about that.
Thanks for keeping us abreast of the important changes, PBS.
Full skeletons now exist and they tell of a tough life on an island with a harsh environment.
Most Eons episodes can only surmise as much. The dodo is an unusual topic because there are written accounts about its behavior.
The Dodo has always seemed a little bit spooky to me. Because of its status as a symbol of extinction, the story of the Dodo was used to explain what extinction was and how it happens when I was a child in school. We would often see artistic depictions of animals in books and things, and the Dodo was commonly included in these, usually in the background or off to one side. And it always gave me a creepy feeling, like here was this strange animal, where it should not be, reminding us of just how fragile life can be.
This is an interesting channel. I'm happy you all are around.
Wow, I had no idea that the dodo was so complex! Kinda shows the hubris of our ancestors when it came to asserting things with little to no evidence, haha. The dodo's one of the few animals that I'd totally be on board with in terms of de-extinction since we kinda were the ones that did them in, even if indirectly. Like, that was our bad lmao
And once we remove rats and pigs (which has been achieved on other islands, and is something we should do anyway to protect any species still there), they would fully have a niche to go back to! And since so many bones have been found, I'm hoping there's enough individuals to get DNA from in order to make a viable population. You'd need a minimum of 10 individuals, but more is definitely better.
The dodo doesn't breed at an uncontrollable rate, so if bringing it back turns out to be a bad idea, it'll be an easy mistake to fix... Hopefully...
@@TheBestAround131 Just bring the rats and pigs back
Where did you find that map at 1:02, and more importantly, where can I find it? It's so great, it really makes you see the world differently, and understand it better. I want one...
Its called a Raised-relief map.
Really attacked those F's huh? 0:04
congrats on the pb on the leg press Blake!
Interesting video, thank you!
Poor dodo.... I really hope they can bring it back. I'd like a video on why it's now thought t-rex had lips that covered their teeth! 🦖
You’re lucky. The channel E.D.G.E. has posted a video explaining the t-rex lips debate just yesterday. I’ll post a link in a separate comment because RUclips tends to delete posts with links.
@@pansepot1490 Oooo! Thanks for the heads-up! It's weird trying to imagine T-rexes with lips. LOL 😆🦖
@@pansepot1490 I watched the video you mentioned. It was really interesting. It's a cool channel, so I subscribed to it. Thanks again!
Another little known fact dodos weren’t stupid they were actually very intelligent birds the only reason they would approach a human it’s probably because they have never seen one before.
“Dodos have become a prime candidate for the concept of de-extinction. The possibility of bringing it back is seriously being explored.”
Ark players: WOOOO, YEAH BABY! THATS WHAT I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR! THATS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT WOOO!
Need to find this mans workout plan, he is getting jacked!
The rat thing actually doesn’t surprise me because that’s the same reason the Tuatara is now critically endangered!
Ecosystems are so delicate and complex in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. It’s impossible to take one species out without having a domino effect throughout.
5:19 I have listened to this 3 times, and I have yet to hear the word "dodo".
I want to know about the story of the eye. How important is our eye in our evolution as a species. How does this work and determine the genetics and biology of other species? We can say that we have this eye because of our anatomy or our anatomy derived from the eye that we have?
Regards from Brazil!!!
Me, out loud alone in my room: "that's heckin funny!"
Blake: "I -guess- that counts as a joke..."
Me: "ouch 😂"
I'd love to know how giraffes and their relatives evolved!
the channel "animal origins" did one 2 years ago if you're interested 😊
Imagine being that last dodo. Knowing your entire species as you know it ends with you. Crazy.
Will dodos come back by scientist?
Well, if you suddenly change the rules of the game, things are going to start to struggle when they were seemingly star players before hand.
If they bring them back, I hope they don't get commercialized into a chicken alternative. 😕
Why?
I mean, why isit worse if its dodos being eaten than Chickens.
Very nice clarification! Would love to see the Dodo or a hybrid of it coming back! Honestly, it is fair, because we're reversing the damage we've done.
Wait...wait...people didn't think about extiction on the 17th century? They didn't realize that if you kill all of a certain animal, then there would be no more of said animal?
Where did they think animals came from? That they would just respawn somewhere? The server would just reset and they would be back?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation
The world just seemed so huge that there would be things left no matter how many were hunted.
The idea that you couldn't kill an animal population in its entirety is a concept based in religion.
All of the creatures on the earth were placed here by God, for human beings to use and exploit was how the thinking went. To suggest extinction was to suggest that human beings could exhaust God's grace. It was considered the height of arrogance to suggest since if we could exhaust something God gave us, it would put us above God in a way. It was thought impossible to ever be able to exhaust God's bounty.
It seems alien to us today (and it was entirely incorrect), but one has to remember that genuine belief in a creator was much more commonplace than today, even amongst the scientists of the time.
Humans do not have senses of an environment on a grand scale. That requires years of research by teams of people, map making, statistics, and all kinds of information hungry sailors on a temporary stop over would not be capable of realizing.
Also, an island population has much less resilience than a continental population, which is not obvious until after the fact. This was early in the Age of Exploration so human impact on uninhabited islands would have been an unpondered concept.
The Endangered Species Act in the U.S. wasn't passed until 1973, and, to this day, people regularly kill rare creatures on their property rather than have to deal with its regulations. In the moment, extinction is often not people's priority.
that outtakes are so good.
Dodo's look like they could bite off a finger
Just one of the first in many to come. We are just getting started causing the extinction of everything including ourselves
Maybe the Dodo bird didn't went under Extention at all. There could be a small percentage of them surviving on some remote islands unstepped by human
Accordingly a large number of poor resolution photos and videos, this is indeed the case!
That’s what the GTA float plane is called, Dodo.
I was very excited when I heard that most of what we were taught about Dodos was wrong and that it was overhauled in 2005... then you restated everything I'd been taught about Dodos since the 80s so I'll just caulk it up to hallucinations of the future again
Personally, i suspected a situation years back. Rats have a terrible track record. I would love to see this specific creature brought back much more than bring back the mammoth
Please bring them back... pigeons who are Even More Round 😭💖
As a Mauritian, the comments are as fascinating as the video 🇲🇺
I've always wondered about the origin an evolution of spiders. I would like to see a video about that.
Human embrasing the quote " DISCOVER THEN DESTROY "
The fact that the dodo only laid one egg and species introduced to the island caused their extinction has been known for a very long time. The 2005 discovery only showed that dodos were well adapted to their environment.
showing that they were well adapted to their environment is a extremely important part of CONFIRMING that it was indirectly the affect of humans and not "inevitable" like people still argued. In hindsight now yes thats all it added but at the time it settled many ongoing debates
Geez. WOW I guess that changes everything in the video. 🎉 congratulations. You're so much better than other people
I agree, it’s an important discovery. My point is that the story we were all told about the Dodo Bird’s extinction is pretty much spot on. The reasons for it haven’t changed.
@Gothic Girlfriend You must be fun at parties 😂
6:13 How is that us humans didn't directly doom the dodo? Without us introducing these species to the island these birds would likely still be alive today? Are u saying simply that humans didn't kill every dodo, but we released all the species that did? That just seems like a contradiction in logic to me. I just don't understand how we aren't the direct cause of the dodo going extinct when a pig or a rat would have never naturally made it to this island without human intervention.
Yeah, the way he said it is the equivalent to plugging a usb with a virus into someone's PC and trying to say it was the virus that cooked their system lol. It's incredible disingenuous or stupid to claim that Humans aren't at fault here.
would it be possible to have a "neo-dodo" in a possible "ice age park🥶" (with characters from the movie 🦣"ice age" as mascots)
The idea of de-extinction is amazing and I sincerely hope I live long enough to see it come to fruition for species that have been gone for decades, centuries, and even millennia.
Humans...
If you think about it, extinction is such a frightening concept.
Bringing back dodos, along with the mammoth, wooly rhino, Tasmanian tiger etc never seems to get much past the "hey, wouldn't it be cool if" stage, but here's hoping.
It would be a terrible idea to bring back mammoths and wooly rhinos. They'd replace living species in ecological niches that may not even exist anymore.
There's an argument for species that disappeared not that long ago, but still: why spend ressources in bringing back species when we don't even protect effectively those that are sill alive?
The illustration at 1:15 just tickled me for some reason; it looks simultaneously absurd and quaint, maybe it’s the capitalization?
Poor friend shape birds
This is one if not thee best video I've seen on the Dodo. 😢🙏🏽