![]() Rats swam from ships and colonised the main island while the Portuguese and later the Dutch settlers brought with them animals including dogs, cats, pigs, cattle, which had not existed on the island previously. ![]() But the bird's fearlessness combined with its flightlessness made it easy prey for humans. During this time dodo became a welcome source of fresh meat for the sailors, even though it is said that the meat was tough and not as good as that of the pigeon. Soon after the arrival of the Portuguese, the island became a stopover for ships engaged in spice trade. The ground bound bird that had evolved to take advantage of an island ecosystem with no predators was entirely fearless of people. ![]() It lived and nested on the ground and ate fruit fallen from the trees. There were no mammals on the island and a high diversity of bird species lived in the dense forest.Īmong them was the dodo that had lived there undisturbed for so long that it lost its need and the ability to fly. Until the Portuguese set foot on the island in the early16th-century, Mauritius was an isolated island in the Indian Ocean. ![]() 'As dead as a dodo' meaning 'undoubtedly and unquestionably dead', and 'to go the way of the dodo' meaning 'to become extinct or obsolete, to fall out of common usage or practice or to become a thing of the past' are phrases of common usage. Besides enriching the English language with phrases to denote anything dead or extinct, the extinct bird species that the world knows as dodo seems to have provided the world enough food for thought and lessons to learn. ![]()
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