In 1812, the dodo was already a ghost. But on Mauritius, its bones were still being unearthed, and the story of its extinction reveals a lost world of giant tortoises, flightless birds, and fragile island ecosystems. This episode follows the first scientific description of the dodo's remains by French naturalist Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre, the rediscovery of the bird through fossil bones in the Mare aux Songes marsh, and the ecological collapse that followed human arrival. We explore the dodo's place in Mauritian memory, from Dutch sailors' accounts to Victorian collectors, and ask what its extinction tells us about human impact on isolated environments. Along the way, we meet the island's other lost species: the broad-billed parrot, the Mauritius giant tortoise, and the Dodo's closest living relative, the Nicobar pigeon. A meditation on loss, science, and the fragility of island life.
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