The skeleton of a Dodo bird to be auction for nearly £500,000

Science Nilgun Salim
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A nearly complete skeleton belonging to a Dodo bird, a species that disappeared from Earth, will be auctioned on Tuesday in Britain.

It was thoroughly reconstructed by a man who started to buy bones from private collections and auctions since the 70’s, reports the Belfast Telegraph.

The collector decided to separate from the reconstituted piece that could be sold for nearly £500,000 pounds during the Summers Place Auctions event in West Sussex.

The Dodo bird, which became famous after appeared in ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ measured about one meter tall and was not able to fly.

These corky birds were discovered in 1598 by a group of Dutch sailors on the island of Mauritius. In the following years, the bird was hunted by sailors and invasive species, while its habitat was being destroyed.

After only 70 years, these birds disappeared because they were hunted by locals for their tasty meat and they were very lenient. According to BBC, another factor that favored their disappearance was the invasion of other animal species on the island.

The last mention regarding the observation of a Dodo was made around 1660.

The Mauritanian government has banned the export of Dodo bones. Summers Place has a unique tradition in the sale of skeletons. In November 2013 the house auctioned a long-necked dinosaur skeleton of a Diplodocus, sold to the National History Museum of Denmark at the price of £400,000.

The dodo’s closest genetic relative was the also extinct Rodrigues solitaire, the two forming the subfamily Raphinae of the family of pigeons and doves.