The Dodo: Extinction in Paradise

So much about the dodo is unknown and will never be known, and yet, so much speculation grew up around the dodo, from the very first encounter to its fabulous appearance in Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", that the Dodo is now at once a literary and scientific icon and a byword for extinction. "The Dodo: Extinction in Paradise" explores the science and the mythology, the history, archaeology, and legend, as well as the dodo's place in art and literature. The story of the dodo is a classic of evolution and extinction to equal, in fascination, that of the dinosaur or the sabre-toothed tiger. Unlike these, the dodo was the first recorded example of extinction, in all probability, entirely caused by humans. Humankind coexisted with the dodo between 1598 and 1681, and then the dodo was gone, hunted to extinction, unable to escape the new predators that arrived in ships on their isolated island later known as Mauritius.