The phrase “dead as a dodo” could one day no longer apply.
More than 300 years after the flightless bird became extinct, scientists at the University of California Santa Cruz have sequenced its full genome, raising the possibility that it could be brought back to life.
Beth Shapiro, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, told a Royal Society of Medicine webinar that her group would soon publish the complete DNA sequence of the bird after finding a “fantastic specimen” in a Danish museum.
Dodos evolved on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius and were first spotted by Portuguese sailors in 1507.
The flightless, large-beaked birds reached a weight of up to 20kg and in some cases stood as high as a metre. »