The Dodo Bird’s Closest Living Relative Puts On a Stunning Show of Iridescent Feathers

BY CAT BOLTON

March 30, 2019 Updated: March 30, 2019

The last dodo bird was publicly spotted hundreds of years ago, falling extinct generations ago and gaining a near-mythical status in history.

Its closest genetic relative, the Rodrigues solitaire, has been extinct for nearly as long—but on islands around the Indian Ocean, the iconic flightless bird has a close cousin that’s very much still alive.

Meet the Nicobar pigeon. Although significantly smaller and drastically different in appearance from the famed dodo, this brightly colored avian species is just as much fun to look at—and if you visit the right zoos and exhibits, you can see one for yourself in person.

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Getting help with the kids slows down ageing in female birds

Date:  March 21, 2019

Source:  University of Groningen

Seychelles warblers live and breed in family groups on the tiny island of Cousin. In each group, a dominant female and male reproduce. When helpers assist the with incubation and feeding of chicks, the dominant female breeders age more slowly and live longer, a study by biologists from the University of Groningen and colleagues from the Universities of East Anglia, Leeds, Sheffield, and Wageningen shows. The results, which are published in the journal Nature Communications on 21 March, indicate how cooperative breeding -- which also occurs in other species, including humans -- can increase life span.

The Seychelles warbler lives on Cousin Island in the Indian Ocean, measuring just 500 by 700 meters. Some fifty years ago, only a handful of birds survived. However, conservation efforts have led to a spectacular increase in the population, and new populations have been established by translocating birds to four other islands nearby. 'There are about one hundred breeding territories on Cousin, each with a dominant male and female and a number of subordinates, which are often the offspring of the dominant pair', explains University of Groningen biologist Martijn Hammers, lead author of the study.

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The other Dodo: Extinct bird that used its wings as clubs

By Rory GallowayScience writer

2 December 2017

The extinct Dodo had a little-known relative on another island. This fascinating bird ultimately suffered the same fate as its iconic cousin, but we can reconstruct some of its biology thanks to the writings of a French explorer who studied it during his travels of the Indian Ocean.

In the middle of the 18th Century, at around the time the US was signing the declaration of independence, a large flightless bird quietly became extinct on an island in the Indian Ocean.

Today this bird is all but forgotten.

Early explorers to Rodrigues described a "Dodo" living on the tiny forested island. Males were grey-brown, and females sandy, both having strong legs and long, proud necks. But despite outward similarities to the iconic Mauritian bird, this wasn't in fact a Dodo, but the Rodrigues solitaire.

If you look up Rodrigues in satellite images, you can see a huge ring of submerged land around the central island, over 50% of the original dry land is thought to have been lost under the waves due to sea level rise and the island subsiding into the bedrock. That was the stage for the evolution of the huge bird, over millions of years.

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