Extinct Animals

Another extinct animal that has attained almost mythical status is the dodo. This bird was discovered in 1598 by Dutch sailors stopping off at the island of Mauritius en route to the Dutch East Indies. They didn’t find the meat of the dodo very tasty, and nicknamed it the ‘vile bird’ (walgvogel). Unfortunately, the rats and pigs introduced to the island by humans did eat dodo eggs, and this led to the birds’ extinction before the end of the 17th century. The quagga, a relation of the zebra, also died out due to human actions. In the 19th century people hunted the quagga on a massive scale on the South African steppe, until not a single one was left in the wild. The last quagga in the world died in 1883 in Amsterdam’s Artis zoo.