The Rodrigues solitaire was endemic to the island of Rodrigues, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. It was most closely related to the also extinct dodo of the nearby island Mauritius, the two forming the subfamily Raphinae. Males were much larger than females and measured up to 90 centimetres in length and 28 kilograms in weight.
About Rodrigues solitaire in brief
The Rodrigues solitaire was endemic to the island of Rodrigues, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. It was most closely related to the also extinct dodo of the nearby island Mauritius, the two forming the subfamily Raphinae. The Nicobar pigeon is their closest living genetic relative. Males were much larger than females and measured up to 90 centimetres in length and 28 kilograms in weight. Its plumage was grey and brown; the female was paler than the male. It had a black band at the base of its slightly hooked beak, and its neck and legs were long. Both sexes were highly territorial, with large bony knobs on their wings that were used in combat. It laid a single egg that was incubated in turn by both sexes. The bird was hunted by humans and introduced animals, and was extinct by the late 18th century. It is the only extinct bird with a former constellation named after it, Turdus Solitarius. The French explorer François Leguat was the first to refer to the bird as the \”solitaire\” It has been suggested that he borrowed the name from a 1689 tract by his sponsor Marquis Henri Duquesne, which used the name ‘solitaire’ in reference to the Réunion ibis. In 1786, subfossil bones encrusted in stalagmite were discovered in a cave and sent to the French naturalist Georges Cuvier in about 1830. More complete remains were found during the 1874 transit of Venus, since an observation station was located on the island.
Thousands of bones were excavated, and mounted skeletons were composed from the remains of several specimens. Some scientists believed that the Rodriguessolitaire was morphologically intermediate between the dodo and ordinary pigeons, but differed from them in its carpal knob. At one point it was suggested that the skeleton of this species of bird was the best known skeleton of humans. In spite of this, it is now suggested that this is the best point of reference for the species of Didazarenus, which is now a junior synonym of the Rodrigue’s solitaire. The Rodrigue’s solitaire is one of the best-known species of birds of this type of bird, despite the fact that it is not unique from other species of pigeons and does not have a unique carotenoid. The species is now known to have belonged to the British taxidermist Abraham Bartlett, who described it in 17th-century description of a dodo skeleton found on Rodrigues. It has also been named after Abraham Bartlet, a taxidermist who described a new species of didazarenu, a new name for a bird of the same name, in the 19th century, but it is thought to have been a synonym for a different species of dodo. It lays only one egg, fed on fruits, was monogamous and cared for its nestlings.
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This page is based on the article Rodrigues solitaire published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 07, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
