Okay, I've resisted the urge to mention most of the usual suspects, but we couldn't have a list of extinct animals without giving the Dodo a shoutout. You know, for such a famous bird, people tend to know very little about it, apart from the fact that it is dead. We don't really know what it ate, how many eggs it laid, how it raised its young, or even why it had the big, stupid beak. This is largely due to the fact that, true to form, they were dead as the proverbial Dodo within 80 years of a human first clapping eyes on one. Luckily, scientists have recently discovered an area of ancient marshland in their homeland of Mauritius that has served as a kind of Dodo graveyard, containing a large quantity well-preserved remains. This marshy time capsule has preserved the remains of not only the Dodo, but many other extinct species of reptile and bird (that we no doubt had a hand in shuffling off the mortal coil). The marsh is thought to predate human settlement by at least 10,000 years. The Dodo's ultimate downfall was all due to its evolution. Bird species that are stranded on islands without predators, like the Dodo, will quickly lose not only their wings, but their fear of other creatures. This meant that they were trusting enough to essentially walk straight into the cooking pots of humans, the poor lambs. Want to write for What Culture Science? Click here to find out how you could get paid to write about what you love.Science is better when it's social. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for plenty more science bombs in your brain bits.
