Q 01/05

The dodo's home island of Mauritius lies in which body of water?

A) The Atlantic Ocean

B) The Indian Ocean

C) The Pacific Ocean

D) The Red Sea

Answer · why

B) The Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean. Arab and Portuguese sailors reached the island, some 800 km east of Madagascar, long before 1598, yet none of them left a word about...

Q 02/05

Which US biotech firm, already trying to revive the woolly mammoth, announced a plan in 2023 to bring back the dodo?

A) Ginkgo Bioworks

B) Colossal Biosciences

C) Revive & Restore

D) Regeneron Pharmaceuticals

Answer · why

B) Colossal Biosciences

Colossal Biosciences. Its plan is to edit cells from a living relative of the dodo towards the lost bird's traits and hatch the chicks from surrogate ...

Q 03/05

What is the dodo's closest living relative?

A) The crowned pigeon

B) The wood pigeon

C) The Nicobar pigeon

D) The tooth-billed pigeon

Answer · why

C) The Nicobar pigeon

The Nicobar pigeon. DNA taken from the Oxford specimen in 2002 put the dodo beside this island-hopping bird of Southeast Asia, a clue to how its flyin...

Q 04/05

The dodo's closest relative of all, also extinct and flightless, was which bird?

A) The Rodrigues solitaire

B) The great auk

C) The Réunion ibis

D) The elephant bird

Answer · why

A) The Rodrigues solitaire

The Rodrigues solitaire. Unlike the dodo it had large bony knobs on its wings, which rivals swung at each other in fights over territory.

Q 05/05

A Dutch account of the 1598 voyage called the dodo twice as big as which bird?

A) A goose

B) A turkey

C) A swan

D) A peacock

Answer · why

C) A swan

A swan. Four years later another captain wrote that his crew caught the birds to eat and took a number on board for salting.