Of all the recently out animals , none seems to excite the imagination quite like the fogey — a factMark Carnallhas experienced firsthand . As one of two Life Collections Managers at the UK ’s Oxford UniversityMuseum of Natural History , he ’s responsible for nearly 150,000 specimens , “ basically all the numb animate being excluding insects and fossils , ” he tells Mental Floss via email . And that includes the only know soft tissue paper fossil head in existence .
“ In the two and a bit years that I ’ve been here , there ’s been a steady flow of queries about the dodo from researchers , creative person , the public , and the media , ” he says . “ This is the third interview about the fossil this week ! It ’s definitely one of the most popular specimen I look after . ”
The dodo , orRaphus cucullatus , lived only on the island of Mauritius ( andsurrounding islets ) in the Indian Ocean . First described by Vice Admiral Wybrand van Warwijck in 1598 , it was extinct less than 100 years later ( sailors ' tales of the bird , couple with its speedy extinction , made many dubiousness that the dodo was a real animate being ) . historian still debate the extent that humans ate them , but the flightless birds were easy prey for the predators , include rats and hog , that sailors put in to the isolated island of Mauritius . Because the fossil run extinct in the 1600s ( the real date is stillwidely debate ) , museum specimen are very , very rare . In fact , with the exception of subfossils — the dark skeletons on display at many museums — there are only three other make love specimens , harmonise to Carnall , “ and one of those is missing . ” ( The full feathered dodos you might have seen in museums ? They ’re example , not genuine zoological specimens . )
Since its extinction was confirm in the 1800s , Raphus cucullatushas been an object of fascination : It ’s beenpainted and drawn , write about and scientifically study , andunfairlybecome synonymous with stupidity . Even now , more than 300 years since the last dodo walk the Earth , there ’s still so much we do n’t get laid about the bird — and Oxford ’s specimen might be our slap-up opportunity to unlock the closed book surround how it behave , how it lived , how it evolved , and how it died .
To put into contexthow older the fogey question is , consider this : From the linguistic rule of Oliver Cromwell to the sovereignty of Queen Elizabeth II , it has been around — and it ’s belike even older than that . Initially an entire shuttlecock ( how exactly it was preserved is indecipherable ) , the specimen belonged to Elias Ashmole , who used his collections to regain Oxford’sAshmolean Museumin 1677 . Before that , it belonged to John Tradescant the Elder and his boy ; adescriptionof the collection from 1656 notes the specimen as “ Dodar , from the Island Mauritius ; it is not able-bodied to flie being so handsome . ”
And that ’s where the fogey ’s cradle finish — beyond that , no one knows where the specimen came from . “ Where the Tradescants got the dodo from has been the subject of some hypothesis , ” Carnall says . Some live Raphus cucullatus did make it to Europe from Mauritius , and the museum thought its specimen might have been one of those birds — but newresearch , put out after Mental Floss ’s initial consultation with Carnall , casts dubiousness on that theory : After scanning the head , Carnall ’s colleagues at the museum and Warwick University discovered that the bird had been shot in the back of the head with pellets used to hunt birds in the 1600s . Though the pellets did n’t penetrate the dodo ’s wooden-headed skull , " the research worker suggest it was a fatal shot , " Carnall tells Mental Floss in an e-mail . " This raw evidence perhaps bespeak it was n’t the remains of a live fossil institute back from Mauritius — unless it was a rather lowering - handed way of set up a fossil down . "
The discovery raise questions not just about where the Raphus cucullatus was dash and who pour down it but , as Oxford University Museum of Natural History director Paul SmithtoldThe Guardian , about how made it to London with its skin and feathers intact . " If it was [ shoot ] in Mauritius , " he said , " there is a really serious inquiry about how it was preserved and transported back , because they did n’t have many of the techniques that we use in the modern day to uphold soft tissues . ” As Carnall allege , " The mystery continues . "
ab initio , the specimen was just another one of many in the museum ’s collections , and in 1755 , most of the body wasdisposed ofbecause of rot . But in the 19th century , when the extinction of the fogey was confirmed , there was suddenly renewed interest in what stay . Carnallwriteson the museum ’s blog that John Duncan , then the Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum , had a number of cast of the head made , which were sent to scientists and establishment like the British Museum and Royal College of Surgeons . Today , those cast — and casts of those casts — can be found around the existence . ( Carnall is actively seek to track them all down . )
In the 1840s , Sir Henry Acland , a physician and instructor , dissected one side of the headland to expose its frame , leaving the skin attached on the other side , for a script about the razzing by Alexander Gordon Melville and H.E. Strickland calledThe fogey and its kindred ; or , The chronicle , affinities , and osteology of the dodo , solitaire , and other extinct bird of the islands Mauritius , Rodriguez and Bourbon . Published in 1848 , “ [ It ] brought together all the known accounts and depictions of the dodo , ” Carnall says . The Dodo and its kindredfurther raised the dodo ’s profile , and may have been what spur schoolteacher George Clark to take a squad to Mauritius , where they see the subfossil dodo remains that can be seen in many museums today .
Melville and Strickland depict Oxford ’s specimen — which they believed to be female — as being “ in tolerable preservation … The center still remain dried within the sockets , but the corneous member of the snout has choke , so that it scarcely exhibits that strongly hook resultant so conspicuous in all the original portraiture . The deep cross channel are also visible , though less originate than in the painting . ”
Today , the specimen let in the headspring as well as the sclerosed ring ( a bony lineament found in the eyes of wench and lizards ) , a plume ( which is mounted on a microscope chute ) , tissue paper sample , the understructure systema skeletale , and scale from the metrical unit . “ consider it ’s been on show in collections and museum , pest eaten , dissected , sampled and handled by scientists for over 350 years , ” Carnall enunciate , “ it ’s in amazingly good condition . ”
There ’s still much we do n’t know about the fogy , and therefore a lot to memorize . As the only flaccid tissue paper of a fossil known to exist , the mind has been studied for C , and not always in way that we would okay of today . “ There was quite some condition about dissecting the peel off of the caput by Sir Henry Acland , ” Carnall enjoin . “ Sadly there have also been some refutable license given , such as when [ Melville ] soaked the point in piss to manipulate the skin and find the bony social structure . extravagant treatment over the years has no doubt added to the habiliment of the specimen . ”
Today , scientists who want to examine the head have to follow a stock communications protocol . “ The first step is to get in touch with the museum with details about access requirements … We plow with enquiry about our collection every single solar day , ” Carnall say . “ Depending on the survey required , we seek to mitigate damage and risk to specimens . For destructive sampling — where a tissue paper sample or pearl sample is needed to be remove from the specimen and then destroy for analysis — we count up the potential importance of the inquiry and how it will be share with the wider community . ”
In other words : Do the potential scientific gains outweigh the peril to the specimen ? “ This , ” Carnall say , “ can be a problematical decision to make . ”
The head , which has been examined by evolutionary biologistBeth Shapiroand quenching expertSamuel Turveyas well as fogey expertsJulian HumeandJolyon Parish , has been key in many late discovery about the bird . “ [ It ] has been used to understand what the dodo would have looked like , what it may have eaten , where it fits in with the bird evolutionary tree , island biogeography and of grade , defunctness , ” Carnall tell . In 2011 , scientist took measurements from dodo corpse — including the Oxford specimen — and retool thesizeof the hiss from the iconic 50 pounder seen in paintings to an brute “ similar to that of a declamatory raving mad Republic of Turkey . ” DNA adopt from specimen ’s pegleg off-white has shed light on how the fossil came to Mauritius and how it was related to other fogey - like birds on neighboring island [ PDF ] . That DNA also revealed that the dodo ’s closest living relative is the Nicobar pigeon [ PDF ] .
Even with those inquiry answered , there are a million more that scientists would wish to reply about the fossil . “ Were there other metal money — plants , parasites — that depended on the fossil ? ” Carnall involve . “ What was the soft tissue like ? … How and when did the dodo and the related to and also nonextant Rodrigues solitaire colonize the Mascarene Islands ? What were their brains like ? ”
Though it ’s a rare specimen , and invaluable by scientific standards , the fogey head is , in many way , just like all the relaxation of the specimens in the museum ’s collections . It ’s stored in a received archival quality corner with pane - barren tissue composition that ’s change on a regular basis . ( The box is getting upgrade to something that Carnall articulate is “ more or less schmancier ” because “ it have quite a snatch of use , more so than the rest period of the collection . ” ) “ As for the specific storage , we store it in burial vault 249 and plainly plow the lasers off during the mean solar day , ” Carnall jokes . “ The passcode for the vault safe is 1234ABCD … ”
According to Carnall , even though there are many scientific and ethnic reasons why the fossil header is considered important , to him , it is n’t necessarily more important than any of the other 149,999 specimen he ’s responsible for .
“ Full disclosure : All museum specimens are equally significant to collections managers , ” he says . “ It is a huge honor and a privilege to be responsible for for this one particular specimen , but each and every specimen in the collection also has the power to kick in towards our noesis of the natural Earth … This calendar week I was instruct about a species of Greek woodlouse and the molluscs of Oxfordshire . We bed next to nothing about these animals — where they inhabit , what they eat , the threats to them , and the marauder that trust on them . The same is true of most living mintage , sadly . But on the upside , there ’s so much piece of work to be done ! ”
