The complete guide to Dodo relatives, living and dead
10,000 Birds
SEPTEMBER 7, 2014
'The Dodo ( Raphus cucullatus ) — that towering icon of modern anthropogenic extinctions — was a pigeon. Not, as Linneaus thought, an ostrich, nor even, as later scientists concluded, a distant cousin of pigeons deserving of family rank, it was an honest-to-goodness pigeon, deeply embedded within the family Columbidae. In fact, the Dodo belonged to a clade (sometimes called Raphini) of 15 remarkable, bizarre, intriguing island-adapted pigeons, some of which are still alive today, but
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