Naturalis - New Dodo expedition: Dutch initiative and interactive

Leiden, 29 May 2006 On Friday, 2 June 2006, an international research team will depart for a 32-day expedition to Mauritius. This expedition will follow up Dutch scientists major find in autumn 2005 of a unique treasure trove of exceptionally rare Dodo remains. The purpose of the current expedition is to reconstruct the world of the Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) before Western man set foot on the island of Mauritius and wiped out the species. The expedition will seek to clarify the Dodos ecotope and explain why it became extinct.

The immediate reason for this expedition was the rare find on 28 October 2005 of a completely undisturbed layer of botanic remains and bones, including Dodo fossils, on the island of Mauritius. This material is up to 3000 years old. There have been previous 20th-century finds of Dodo bones on Mauritius, but no-one previously sought to study the geology or ecology of these sites. This type of research is needed to reconstruct the landscape, fauna and flora and establish whether these animals were wiped out all at once by a natural disaster. The Mascarene Islands, of which Mauritius is one, are unique in that they probably have the only Dodo-fossil sites in the world.

Research team
The international multidisciplinary team assembled specially for this expedition includes archaeologists, palaeontologists, sedimentologists and palynologists from fifteen different institutes in various countries. The Naturalis palaeontologist Dr Lars van den Hoek Ostende is one of the driving forces of the team, which also includes Dr Beth Shapiro, an expert on ancient DNA, and Dr Julian Hume, a palaeontologist and Dodo specialist. The project is being led by Dr Kenneth Rijsdijk (TNO B&O - Geological Survey of the Netherlands).

www.dodo-expeditie.nl
The above website, which has been set up specially for the Dodo expedition, was launched on Monday, 22 May. Here, team members will report daily from the field via a weblog and communicate their finds and photographs immediately, while interested members of the public and the press can also put questions to the researchers. The site will be open throughout the project, which will take around three years to complete, and will present the latest news on the Dodo.