Raphus Skeleton or Dodo Bird Height is 27 inches & Dodo bird Skull measures 7 in. Both are museum quality polyurethane rein castings. Made in USA.
The Raphus or Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) is an extinct flightless bird that was endemic to the island of Mauritius, which is east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
The Raphus or Dodo’s closest genetic relative was the also-extinct Rodrigues solitaire. The two formed the subfamily Raphinae, a clade of extinct flightless birds that were a part of the family which includes pigeons and doves.
The Dodo was variously declared a small ostrich, a rail, an albatross, or a vulture, by early scientists.
As no complete Raphus or Dodo’s specimens exist, its external appearance, such as plumage and coloration, is hard to determine.
Illustrations and written accounts of encounters with the dodo between its discovery and its extinction (1598–1662) are the primary evidence for its external appearance.
According to most representations, the Raphus or Dodo’s had greyish or brownish plumage, with lighter primary feathers and a tuft of curly light feathers high on its rear end.
The head was grey and naked, the beak green, black and yellow, and the legs were stout and yellowish, with black claws.
A study of the few remaining feathers on the Oxford specimen head showed that they were pennaceous rather than plumaceous (downy) and most similar to those of other pigeons.
Subfossil remains and remnants of the birds that were brought to Europe in the 17th century show that dodos were very large birds, up to 3 ft 3 in. tall. The bird was sexually dimorphic; males were larger and had proportionally longer beaks.
The skull of the Raphus or Dodo’s differed much from those of other pigeons, especially in being more robust, the bill having a hooked tip, and in having a short cranium compared to the jaws.
The upper bill was nearly twice as long as the cranium, which was short compared to those of its closest pigeon relatives. The openings of the bony nostrils were elongated along the length of the beak, and they contained no bony septum.
The Raphus or Dodo’s cranium (excluding the beak) was wider than it was long, and the frontal bone formed a dome-shape, with the highest point above the hind part of the eye sockets.
The skull sloped downwards at the back. The eye sockets occupied much of the hind part of the skull.
The sclerotic rings inside the eye were formed by eleven ossicles (small bones), similar to the amount in other pigeons. The Raphus or Dodo’s mandible was slightly curved, and each half had a single fenestra (opening), as in other pigeons.
