Bringing the dodo back to life

Dodo skeleton find in Mauritius

At first glance the Mauritian coat of arms looks like any other, until one notices that the creature on the left is a dodo rampant. The concept of a rampant dodo is so deliciously absurd that it's hard not to giggle. For all the evidence we have suggests that the dodo was singularly cumbersome and defenceless. Hence, maybe, its Latin name, didus ineptus. The Dutch, who settled the previously uninhabited island in the early 17th century, referred to the dodo as the walgvogel, or "ghastly bird." This was apparently because, no matter which way you cooked it, its flesh was as tough as old boots. However, that didn't stop the colonisers hunting the poor dodo down. Scientists say they have discovered part of the skeleton of a dodo, the large, flightless bird which became extinct more than 300 years ago. One of the team in Mauritius said it was the first discovery of fully preserved bones which could give clues as to how the bird lived its life. Last year, the team unearthed dodo bones in the same area, but said the current find was more "significant". The bird is thought to have been hunted to extinction by European settlers. No complete skeleton has ever been found in Mauritius, and the last full set of bones was destroyed in a fire at a museum in Oxford, England, in 1755. Scientists recently declared that they could reconstruct a dodo from DNA. Not as a motionless exhibit to display in the Mauritian Institute, but a living, breathing resuscitation, from beyond the grave.