Dodos were traditionally portrayed as dumb, bumbling birds. But now, scientists have scanned dodo skulls and found nothing to suggest these birds were stupid. What they did find, however, was that the part of the dodo's brain that's responsible for visual processing was small — comparable to that of some nocturnal birds.
Dodos were wiped out within a century of humans settling on their island home of Mauritius in 1598. However, it wasn't just hunting that drove them to extinction. The sailors introduced dogs, cats, pigs and rats, which would have likely killed the birds and eaten their eggs. These invasive species wreaked havoc on the dodo's ecosystem and continue to plague Mauritian wildlife to this day.
This isn't the first time researchers have poured cold water on the stereotypical depiction of dodos. A 2024 study found that dodos were likely fast and powerful, rather than slow and bumbling. The new research also builds on a 2016 study that concluded dodos were likely as smart as modern pigeons, which can solve problems and understand abstract concepts like space and time.
"Apparently, they would just grab one, let it scream and wait, and all the other dodos would run towards this one to see what was the cause of the distress," Citron said.
Inside the dodo's brain
To better understand dodo biology, the researchers embarked on an international collaborative effort to study as many CT (computed tomography) scans of dodo heads as they could to deduce the size and shape of their brains, starting with one at the University of Lethbridge.
The team compared the dodo scans to those collected on 36 living species of pigeons and doves, as well as the extinct Rodrigues solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria), a close relative of the dodo that lived on Rodrigues Island — east of the Mauritius mainland — and suffered the same fate. Unlike dodos, the solitaire's brain was what researchers would expect from a giant pigeon.
Researchers know surprisingly little about dodo behavior, but this artist has depicted what a dodo might have looked like if it was active at night. (Image credit: Adel Lee. Instagram: @sykonebabblin)RELATED STORIES
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For now, interpretations of the dodo's behavior remain speculative. However, Citron said she wishes the dodo would stop being portrayed as a "stupid thing that is doomed to go extinct because of how inept it is." She argued that animals on the brink of extinction today, especially when they're not like humans, are also dismissed for the same reason.
"[Endangered animals] are intelligent, they are adapted to their environment for millions of years, and the fact that we are destroying it now doesn't mean that they are stupid or they don't deserve to keep living," she added.
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