6 Extinct Foods From History - Page 3 of 8

Dodo

Dutch sailors first visited the island chain of Mauritius in 1598, and less than two centuries later the archipelago’s native dodo went extinct. Sailors relied on the birds as sustenance during long voyages at sea, but that isn’t the primary reason they died out; habitat and the introduction of invasive species like rats and pigs ultimately wiped out the animal. Though humans did eat dodo meat, it was more for survival than taste. The last person to spot a dodo, an English sailor named Benjamin Harry, called its flesh “very hard.” The Dutch word for dodo was walghvodel, or “disgusting bird.”