{"id":624154,"date":"2026-08-06T20:25:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T20:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/624154\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T20:25:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T20:25:24","slug":"dodo-had-surprisingly-keen-sense-of-smell-and-owl-like-vision-new-study-reveals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/624154\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodo Had Surprisingly Keen Sense of Smell and Owl-Like Vision, New Study Reveals"},"content":{"rendered":"

New research led by University of Lethbridge scientists offers the most detailed look yet at how the dodo (Raphus cucullatus)<\/a> \u2014 the flightless bird driven to extinction by the 1600s \u2014 actually perceived its world, suggesting the \u2018stupid bird\u2019 had a far more complex sensory life than its reputation implies.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The dodo (Raphus cucullatus) by Frederick William Frohawk, 1905.<\/p>\n

The dodo and its close relative, the Rodrigues Solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria<\/a>), are two of the most recognized symbols of human-caused extinction.<\/p>\n

Yet, despite their prominence in the scientific and popular literature, little is known about their behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cFew animals symbolize human impact on nature as intensely as the dodo,\u201d said University of Lethbridge Ph.D. student Sara Citron and her colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cEndemic to Mauritius, the flightless dodo generated interest and awareness of humanity\u2019s role in extinctions, paving the way for the emergence of conservation biology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExtensive research on the dodo has yielded insights and ongoing debate over various aspects of its biology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of this knowledge was established after its disappearance in the late-17th century because, despite surviving the arrival of humans on Mauritius for several decades, only limited and often inaccurate information on its behavior and ecology were recorded when the species was still alive, and no skins were preserved.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith respect to its behavior, it is inferred that it nested on the ground and showed little fear of humans. The latter is a common trait in island-dwelling species with no mammalian predators, and contributed to the unfair portrayal of the dodo as \u2018stupid\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNotably, this depiction was never applied to the dodo\u2019s closest relative, the Rodrigues Solitaire, which became extinct around c. 1761,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to the accounts of Fran\u00e7ois Leguat in 1691-93 and Julien Tafforet in 1725-26, who were both marooned on the island, the behavior of the Solitaire is significantly better attested than the dodo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir description of the Solitaire\u2019s intense intraspecific (and potentially interspecific) aggression, may, unlike the unfortunate dodo, have spared the bird from a similarly foolish attribution.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the current study, the authors compared CT scans of dodo and Rodrigues Solitaire skulls with those of 36 living pigeon and dove species, examining eye sockets, nerve openings, and 3D brain reconstructions called endocasts.<\/p>\n

The findings paint two very different pictures of these closely related, extinct island birds.<\/p>\n

The Rodrigues Solitaire, once thought to be a scaled-up pigeon, turns out to essentially be just that \u2014 its sensory systems closely resemble those of its living relatives, aside from an oddly shaped skull.<\/p>\n

The dodo, however, stands apart. The researchers found its optic lobes \u2014 the brain region that processes visual information \u2014 were more than three times smaller relative to brain size than in the Nicobar pigeon, its closest living relative.\u201d<\/p>\n

This reduction places the dodo\u2019s visual processing capacity in territory more typical of owls than of daytime-active pigeons, hinting the bird may have been active at dawn and dusk rather than exclusively during the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe suspected that dodos were better adapted to seeing in darker conditions,\u201d said Flinders University\u2019s Professor Vera Weisbecker.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had slightly larger eyes, but unusually small optic lobes, an area of the brain that processes light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis could mean that its visual abilities are poorer, because small optic lobes often mean that the light reaches the brain through fewer nerves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see similarly small optic lobes in many nocturnal birds, like the elusive Australian night parrot or the New Zealand kakapo, indicating they relied little on sight and were active mainly at night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Restoration<\/p>\n

Restoration of the Rodrigues Solitaire, a flightless member of the pigeon order endemic to Rodrigues, Mauritius (Frederick William Frohawk, 1907)<\/p>\n

At the same time, the dodo\u2019s olfactory bulbs appeared enlarged compared with other pigeons, suggesting an unusually sharp sense of smell.<\/p>\n

Its trigeminal nerve, which carries touch sensation from the face, also showed signs of enlargement near the beak, possibly linked to its oversized upper bill.<\/p>\n

Notably, the scientists found no evidence that the dodo had a smaller brain region associated with cognition, undercutting the notion that the bird\u2019s docility around humans reflected low intelligence.<\/p>\n

Both birds appear to have communicated using unusually low-frequency sounds based on measurements of their inner-ear structures.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no evidence that the dodo was any less intelligent than its relatives \u2014 and we know that pigeons are pretty smart,\u201d said University of Lethbridge\u2019s Dr. Andrew Iwaniuk.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dodo has the most unusual skull with a strangely domed head, but the part of its brain that determines cognition was exactly as big as what one would expect for a bird of its size.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese gentle animals were possibly quite social. Like many island species, they were also used to a life without predators. They may simply have had no reason to learn fearful behavior,\u201d Citron added.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalling them \u2018stupid\u2019 for being naive makes it sound like they deserved to go extinct, which is so unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are quite confident that dodos were active at dawn, dusk or night-time, which would make it the only nocturnal pigeon in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps this gave it an advantage over the many strictly day-active turtles that lived on Mauritius.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt night-time, it may have been able to escape competition for food sources with other species, such as the island\u2019s many turtles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dodo\u2019s skull is unlike that of any living bird, which makes it both fascinating and difficult to interpret,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy comparing digital reconstructions of the world\u2019s only two complete dodo skulls, we now have a much stronger foundation for identifying which features are truly characteristic of the species and what they can tell us about how the dodo lived,\u201d said Dr. Christy Anna Hipsley, a researcher at the Natural History Museum Denmark.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe study provides an important new framework for understanding its behavior and ecology,\u201d said Dr. Peter Andrew Hosner, also from the Natural History Museum Denmark.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dodo has become a symbol of extinction, but in many ways it remains surprisingly mysterious.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery new piece of evidence helps us move beyond myths and build a more accurate picture of how this extraordinary bird lived before it disappeared.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s results<\/a> were published August 5, 2026 in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Sara Citron et al. 2026. The sensory world of the Dodo and Solitaire revealed by endocast and skull anatomy. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 207 (4): zlag123; doi: 10.1093\/zoolinnean\/zlag123<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New research led by University of Lethbridge scientists offers the most detailed look yet at how the dodo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[27375,159,10401,12280,78621,263669,18,19,17,50179,5856,194158,263670,203706,263671,263672,263673,133,207765,53529,14808],"class_list":["post-624154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-bird","tag-brain","tag-cognition","tag-communication","tag-dodo","tag-dove","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mauritius","tag-olfaction","tag-olfactory-bulb","tag-pezophaps-solitaria","tag-pigeon","tag-raphus-cucullatus","tag-rodrigues","tag-rodrigues-solitaire","tag-science","tag-sense-of-smell","tag-skull","tag-vision"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117050444493454056","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}