Speculation, statistics, facts and the Dodo's extinction date

Abstract

Two recent papers claiming to offer reasons to support a late (1680s+) extinction date for the Dodo Raphus cucullatus base their arguments on information that does not in fact alter the biological and historical facts suggesting extinction on mainland Mauritius in the 1640s and on an offshore refuge in 1662. Recently accessible manuscripts indicating that the Dutch settlers in Mauritius saw no Dodos during 1664–1674 reinforce this view.

Keywords::

• Raphus cucullatus
• Aphanapteryx bonasia
• Red Hen
• Mauritius
• Ile d'Ambre
• refuge
• Lamotius
• Harry

Acknowledgements

I thank Jolyon Parish and especially Carl Jones for constructive comments on a draft of this paper, and the helpful comments from two anonymous referees; Philippe LaHausse in Mauritius kindly sourced for me a copy of the recent DVD with digital scans of the Doyen papers (Staub and Herbereau 2013).

Notes

^1. E.g. Newton and Gadow (1896), Rothschild (1907), Hachisuka (1953), Greenway (1967), Fuller (1987) and Staub (1996).

^2. Sloane MS 3668; the fullest transcript of Harry's stay in Mauritius is in Barnwell (1948), but he modernised spelling and punctuation and may have abridged the account.

^3. ‘die man Toddarsche nennet’ is actually the singular form, and would be better rendered as ‘…which is called Toddarsche…’, Hengst's ‘they’ implying ‘the settlers (but not me)’. Grandidier et al. (1903–1920) translated Hoffman's German account of Mauritius in full, but wrongly made the birds unable to run fast.

^4. Alfred Newton was a bit conflicted on the extinction date, as he also accepted the Benjamin Harry record (e.g. Newton and Gadow 1896, p. 160)

^5. van Wissen (1995), Ziswiler (1996), Quammen (1996), Fuller (2000), Fuller (2002) (although in the latter book Fuller did not fully accept the Evertsz account as being Dodos). Nearly all authors (Fuller 2002 and Mlíkovský 2004 excepted) agree that Evertsz in 1662 gave the last eyewitness account and description of living Dodos (see Olearius 1680; Cheke 1987; 2004; van Wissen 1995; Cheke and Hume 2008, p. 78; den Hengst 2009; Parish 2013).

^6. Moree (1998), Sleigh (2000), den Hengst (2003), Grihault (2005); Hume et al. (2004) mentioned then dismissed the name change but failed to properly address it. A comment by Parish (2013), citing Pitot (1905) in Staub (1996), that Lamotius had reported to the Capetown authorities ‘ten places where the dodo might be found’ is a misinterpretation – Lamotius was discussing the location of intact palm forests.

^7. Based on earlier work by Solow (1993).

^8. George Wreeden in 1671, Sven Fellenson in 1672 (Staub and Herbereau 2013).

^9. Hume et al. (2004) implied that these birds were also reported by Lamotius, but they are not mentioned by den Hengst in his more detailed analysis, and it may be that Hume et al. conflated mention of these species by Harry (Strickland 1848; Barnwell 1948) and the log of the President (Barnwell 1950–1954) with Lamotius's hunting records.

^10. This hare appears to have been started by Hume et al. (2004) who wrote that ‘there is no evidence that Lamotius or Hugo changed this name [veldt-hoen(der)] to dodaersen’ – in fact no-one had suggested the name change had originated with the governors themselves.

^11. Hugo et al. (1673), Pitot (1905), Barnwell (1948), Staub and Herbereau (2013). It is clear that in Hugo's time the local dogs were poorly trained and would catch anything that moved. Hugo made many complaints about this (Pitot 1905; Staub and Herbereau 2013), and it is likely the same prevailed under Lamotius.

^12. The similar Curlews N. arquata are rarer.

^13. Khan (1927), in his introduction, stated that the first reference in print to Marshall's manuscripts was as late as 1872.

^14. 1640–1692, Cheke (2006), recalculated by Roberts to 1639–1686.

^15. E.g. Strickland (1848), E. Newton in Clark (1869), Newton and Newton (1870), Newton and Gadow (1896), Hachisuka (1953), Greenway (1967), Cheke (1987), Cheke and Hume (2008).

^16. E.g. Schaling and Roeper (1991), van Wissen (1995), Moree (1998), Cheke (2006), den Hengst (2009) and Parish (2013).

^17. Stokram's only mention of Dodos appears in a paragraph describing the island largely culled from Het Tweede Boek (1601) dating from 1598, whereas his lists of animals caught and eaten look authentic.

^18. Granaet in 1666 (Barnwell 1648), Hoffman (1680) in 1773–1775, log of the President in 1681 (Barnwell 1950–1954), Leguat (1707) in 1693.

^19. E.g. Pitot (1905), Cheke (1987, 2004), Staub (1996), Hume et al. (2004) and Grihault (2005).

^20. Roberts and Solow (2003), Cheke (2006), Hume (2006), Cheke and Hume (2008) and Roberts (2013).

^21. The account of the escaped slaves comes not from Hugo himself, but from a further group of shipwreck survivors picked up later who reached Batavia by a roundabout route in September 1663 – they reported five ‘caffers’ escaping from Hugo, and one of the Dutchmen being murdered by the Africans (van der Chijs 1891; Schaling and Roeper 1991).

^22. Hugo's statement flatly contradicts the information cited by Hume et al. (2004, Parish 2013) that Hugo reported to the VOC ‘that hunters captured and killed dodo and other endemic prey for Hugo on 16 August 1673’, just five months before denying that any Dutchman on the island had ever seen one; the relevant original text has not been published and so this discrepancy remains unexplained. Perhaps the earlier (August) reference was to Red Hens (as per local parlance) before Hugo realised that they were not the same as the walgvogels of the first Dutch visitors.