Until the last decade or so, the dodo was depicted as a comically chubby, clumsy cretin, too complacent and trusting to survive its newly arrived neighbors. …
However, recent research has gone a long way toward overturning the dodo’s frankly undeserved reputation. … [A] 2016 study in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society revealed that, based on an X-ray of a dodo skull, it likely had a sharp sense of smell and may have even been as bright as a pigeon.
Early on, experts who tried to understand the disappearance of the dodo assumed (thanks in no small part to its dim-witted depiction) that it was hunted to extinction by Dutch sailors. … On the other hand, numerous written accounts attest to the dodo being a less-than-desirable meal choice.
So, which one was it: Was the dodo too disgusting or too delicious? … All things considered, the likeliest explanation is that while dodo meat wasn’t terribly unpleasant, better options existed — Mauritian pigeons and parrots were in no short supply. Thus, it’s unlikely that hunters directly caused the dodo to die out.
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