3-D Scans Give New Life to the Dodo

3-D Scans Give New Life to the Dodo

Can technology revise our image of the bird as a big, dumb buffoon?

Everyone knows the story of the dodo, right? Big, slow, dumb, pear-shaped bird that basically deserved its extinction when hungry colonists arrived on its isolated island home of Mauritius in the 17th century. Not so fast. Paleontologist Leon Claessens at the University of the Holy Cross has spent the last four years using 3-D scans and virtual reconstructions to rewrite the story of this much-maligned bird, as described in this recent Audubon article by Jennifer Huizen.

3-D Scans Give New Life to the Dodo