DODO Raphus cucullatus

Few creatures have shaped the human imagination as thoroughly as the dodo, and few are as poorly understood. Raphus cucullatus lived only on the island of Mauritius, evolving over millions of years without natural predators until it lost the need, and eventually the ability, to fly. Then, within less than a century of first contact with European sailors in the 1600s, it was gone. DODO: The Complete Natural History of the World’s Most Famous Extinct Bird tells the full story of that disappeara…