When did the dodo become extinct?
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- 1 November 2003
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Nature in Nature
- Vol. 426 (6964) , 245
- https://doi.org/10.1038/426245a
Abstract
The extinction of the dodo (Raphus cucullatus L.; Fig. 1) is commonly dated to the last confirmed sighting in 1662, reported by Volkert Evertsz on an islet off Mauritius1,2. By this time, the dodo had become extremely rare — the previous sighting having been 24 years earlier — but the species probably persisted unseen beyond this date. Here we use a statistical method to establish the actual extinction time of the dodo as 1690, almost 30 years after its most recent sighting.Keywords
This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- An ecological history of the Mascarene Islands, with particular reference to extinctions and introductions of land vertebratesPublished by Cambridge University Press (CUP) ,1987
- Optimal linear estimation of bounds of random variablesBiometrika, 1980