Posted on 11/22/2016 3:37:59 PM PST by BenLurkin
The bones of the extinct, flightless bird were sold at Summers Place Auctions, in Billingshurst, West Sussex, to a private collector.
The remains were compiled by a dodo enthusiast over four decades until he had enough bones to create a 95% complete skeleton.
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The auction house said the total paid would be £346,300, ($430,662) which included its fee.
It said there were only 12 similarly complete skeletons in existence and all were held by museums.
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The dodo was a flightless bird once found on Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean.
It was first seen by Portuguese sailors in the first decade of the 16th Century but was soon wiped out by humans and the animals they introduced. The dodo was extinct by 1681.
Bigger than a turkey, it was thought to weigh about 23kg (50lb), with blue-grey plumage, a big head, a nine-inch (23cm) blackish bill with reddish sheath forming the hooked tip, small useless wings, stout yellow legs and a tuft of curly feathers high on its rear end.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
There will be a lot of Dodo skeletons this Thanksgiving.
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