The REAL reason The Dodo Went Extinct

This is a dodo. Most people were taught that these birds disappeared because they were physically and mentally quite slow. And if you believe this, you have been lied to. The real reason they went extinct has a lot to do with evolution. If we go back 140 million years ago, this part of land broke away from Africa and soon split up into Madagascar and India. India decided they didn't want to be anywhere near Madagascar anymore and shot up into Asia at the ultra-fast speeds of 16 centimeters per year. According to my calculations, that's about two and a half million times slower than this garden snail. This was so fast that it formed an underwater mountain range called the Mascarine Plateau. A couple mountaintops peaked above the sea creating some islands including this, this, this, and this. The entire dodo population lived exclusively on the island of Mauritius, but they aren't there yet. Honestly, nothing is. It's just a rock at the moment, but not for long. Transported by the strong ocean currents, some gusts of winds, and a couple ubers, many plants made their way to the island and it didn't take much time before the island was colored in greenery. Unfortunately, though, there were no animals yet. You see, animals have a much harder time traveling a thousand kilometers over open ocean. I mean, unless you're this guy, it's kind of hard. But there are some animals that can manage it. Birds. Due to the overpowered ability of flight, there is no corner of earth that is safe from these flying fiends. Even the tiny island of Mauritius was occupied by an ancient relative of the pigeon around four million years ago. What these birds discovered was an island paradise. Lush with trees, fostering a multitude of fruits and nuts, with a distinct lack of predatory animals. So of course, these pigeons were like, hey man, let's just like, stay here. So they did, for four million years. Due to the wide availability of food on the island, and the sheer isolation it had from any other land masses, except this, the birds gradually grew much larger than their relatives on the mainland, due to a phenomenon known as island gigantism. They also went from having small sharp beaks, best suited for eating small insects, to huge claw-like beaks, to better gobble down as many fruits as possible. The birds grew from only 15 centimeters tall to nearly a meter tall, making them the second largest animal on the island, just after the tortoise. This brings us to factor one, the four main factors that influenced the extinction of the dodo. Meet Steve. Steve is a dodo. Hello. Due to Steve's weight gain, and his stubby little wings, he completely lost the ability to fly. Behaviors like fleeing from danger was once necessary for Steve's great grandparents to escape predators. But due to the lack of any sort of predator on the island, he didn't need to fly or run away from anything. This caused a big problem. Not only could Steve not physically run away from anything now, but over millions of years of having no predators and practically limitless food, he had literally forgotten the fight or flight instincts that helped his ancestors survive. The fearlessness hardwired itself into Steve's brain, making him literally just not feel fear. You could shove him whatever the hell this thing is, and he would sit completely unfazed. Steve had the defense stats of a vegetable, but as long as he and his buddies remained completely isolated on their island paradise, they would be completely fine. Uh oh, it's Europe. Well actually, the first people to arrive were probably the Arabians, then the Portuguese, but the Dutch were the first to actually settle on the island. And although the Dutch were known for walking up to the dodos and beating crap out of them, they weren't the real problem. It was what they brought with them. Cheese, no. The Dutch brought many animals, including dogs, cats, rats, and even monkeys. These animals had found a predator's paradise. There were literally giant walking meatbags that just roamed the island, didn't run away from you, and they would leave giant yummy eggs just laying around. Imagine you're a dodo, just, you know, munching some side oxylon grandiflorum. You turn around, and there's a monstrous looking creature sat right behind you. Oh hi. Steve was pretty screwed. Not only were there savage dogs ripping them to shreds every chance they got, but rats were literally spawn killing the dodo eggs that were littered across the island, meaning there was no way they could repopulate. The situation was getting really bad for the dodo. The Dutch initially didn't consider Mauritius to be very valuable until they realised it was littered with millions of hardwood trees, and wood costs money. Not long after, the island was stripped bare and the forests that acted as the only source of protection for the dodo were destroyed, meaning Steve was stuck out in the open, more vulnerable than ever. The Dutch settled the island in 1638, and the last sighting of the dodo was only 24 years later, but it's thought they managed to last maybe only 100 years until they went completely extinct. Steve and his friends had all died. Whether this was as a result of the animals that competed with them and hunted them and their eggs, or if it was the destruction of their natural habitat that inevitably ended them, it shows that much like how us humans have become soft, needing our daily vitamin gummies just to stay alive, the dodo became accustomed to the easy life, devoid of predators, and access to as much food as they could ever want. So it was inevitable that when predators finally made it to the island, they stood absolutely no chance. I wonder what would happen if we hadn't interfered with the island. Perhaps we'd have dodo livestock. Maybe even Kentucky Fried Dodo. Who knows? Anyway, bye.