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A DNA test on the mummified bird that helped
to inspire Alice in Wonderland has revealed that the dodo
was actually a pigeon.
According to a study published today in the
journal Science, the Alice in Wonderland Dodo, kept at the
Oxford
University Museum of Natural History, has helped establish
exactly where the extinct bird fitted on the evolutionary
scale.
It is so called because Lewis Carroll, the
pen name of Oxford mathematician Charles Dodgson, once took
Alice Liddell, on whom Alice was based, to see the preserved
leg, head and foot of the bird, which contain its only surviving
soft tissue.
Researchers also examined the remains of another
flightless island bird, the solitaire, which also died off
centuries ago.
Both birds were so heavily modified for their
island habitats that it is difficult to determine their
evolutionary history simply by looking at their shape and
their bones.
Now DNA analyses of these birds have confirmed
that the dodo and the solitaire are part of the pigeon family.
The study, led by Dr Alan Cooper, director
of the Henry Wellcome Ancient Biomolecules Centre, Oxford
University, would not have been possible without the prompt
action of a curator in the 1700s.
"The specimen is thought to be one of the birds
brought to Europe for exhibition in the mid to late 1600s,
and was almost thrown away in a clean-up of tatty specimens
in the 1700s," said Dr Cooper. "Fortunately, a curator grabbed
the leg, foot and head - reputedly from the fire used to
dispose of the rejects."
The museum gave the team permission to take
samples of flesh and bone. "Relatively few well-preserved
specimens of the dodo exist - although a number of bones
have been retrieved from the large swamps in Mauritius,"
said Dr Cooper. "Unfortunately the swamp environment has
not allowed the preservation of DNA."
Nicobar pigeon (Caloenas nicobarica)
The closest living relative of the dodo is
the Nicobar pigeon, of south-east Asia, from which the dodo
and solitaire diverged about 42.6 million years ago, the
study concludes. "The dodo and solitaire are indeed pigeons,
right in the middle of the pigeon tree in evolutionary terms,"
said Dr Cooper.
The dodo lived on Mauritius until the mid-1600s,
when it was wiped out by humans and the introduction of
rats and pigs. The solitaire inhabited Rodrigues, which
lies to the east of Mauritius, until around the same time.
Dr Cooper ruled out suggestions that it would
be possible to resurrect the birds using ancient DNA. "DNA
rapidly decays after death, and only incredibly small fragments
survive after a short amount of time.
"The finances required would be much better
spent on conserving the species that survive around us today,"
he said.
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