CT scans reveal new clues to how the dodo sensed its environment and challenge its reputation as an unintelligent bird.
For centuries, one of the world’s only two complete dodo skulls has been preserved in Copenhagen. Now, that rare specimen is helping researchers investigate a question fossils rarely answer directly: what was it like for a dodo to sense and navigate its surroundings?
Scientists led by the University of Lethbridge in Canada digitally reconstructed the space that once held the bird’s brain. The anatomy suggests that the dodo experienced its environment differently from living pigeons and doves. It may have been active beyond full daylight into dawn and dusk, relied more heavily on smell, and gathered more tactile information through its large upper beak. These clues offer a clearer picture of how the bird may have searched for food and interacted with its environment on Mauritius before becoming extinct in the late 17th century.
“The dodo is one of the world’s most recognizable extinct animals, yet surprisingly little is known about how it actually lived,” says Peter Andrew Hosner, Associate Professor and Curator of Birds at the Natural History Museum Denmark and co-author of the study published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
“Its behavior and foraging ecology have been debated for centuries. Having access to one of only two complete dodo skulls has given us a unique opportunity to compare the dodo with its closest living relatives and gain new insights into how it experienced and interacted with its environment,” he adds.
CT scans preserve clues to lost senses
The Copenhagen skull has long been displayed at the Natural History Museum Denmark. Preparations for a new museum building and permanent galleries scheduled to open in 2027 gave researchers an unusual chance to examine the specimen using high-resolution CT scanning.
Without harming the rare skull, the scan generated a detailed three-dimensional digital model. Researchers could then reconstruct its interior, including the cavity where the brain once sat. As a brain develops, it leaves impressions on the surrounding bone, allowing the shape of that cavity to preserve evidence about the sensory capabilities of an extinct animal.
The researchers analyzed CT data from three dodo skulls. These included the only two complete examples known worldwide, one from the Natural History Museum Denmark and the other from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Digital models of both complete skulls allowed direct comparisons and gave the researchers a stronger foundation for deciding which anatomical features were characteristic of the species.
“Studying extinct animals is a bit like detective work. Although the dodo’s brain disappeared centuries ago, it left an imprint on the inside of the skull. By digitally reconstructing those spaces and comparing them with the brains of living birds, we can begin to piece together how the dodo sensed, behaved and interacted with the world around it,” says Christy Anna Hipsley, Associate Professor at the Natural History Museum Denmark and co-author of the study.
The dodo sensed its world differently
The next step was to compare the reconstructed brain cavity with those of pigeons and doves, the closest living relatives of the dodo. Several differences pointed toward a distinctive combination of sensory abilities.
Its anatomy indicates that the dodo may not have restricted its activity to daylight and could also have been active near dawn and dusk. The bird may have depended more on smell than living pigeons and doves, while its unusually large upper beak appears to have been capable of processing tactile information from the environment. These anatomical clues cannot establish exactly how the dodo behaved, but they help narrow the possibilities for how it located food and experienced its island habitat.
“The dodo’s skull is unlike that of any living bird, which makes it both fascinating and difficult to interpret. By comparing digital reconstructions of the world’s only two complete dodo skulls, we now have a much stronger foundation for identifying which features are truly characteristic of the species and what they can tell us about how the dodo lived,” Hipsley adds.
Evidence challenges the unintelligent dodo myth
Popular portrayals have often reduced the dodo to a clumsy, unintelligent animal seemingly destined for extinction. The anatomical evidence does not support the idea that its cognitive abilities were diminished relative to those of living pigeons and doves. Instead, the researchers found signs of a distinctive sensory system that developed over millions of years of evolution on an isolated island.
There are limits to what skull anatomy can reveal. The researchers caution that these structures cannot provide a definitive account of the bird’s behavior. Still, combining CT scans from several specimens, including both complete skulls, allows scientists to separate some anatomical evidence from centuries of speculation.
For Hosner, the findings do not resolve every unanswered question about the dodo. Instead, they provide a stronger framework for reconstructing its ecology and behavior.
“The dodo has become a symbol of extinction, but in many ways it remains surprisingly mysterious. Every new piece of evidence helps us move beyond myths and build a more accurate picture of how this extraordinary bird lived before it disappeared,” he says.
Reference: “The sensory world of the Dodo and Solitaire revealed by endocast and skull anatomy” by Sara Citron, Christy Anna Hipsley, Julian Hume, Helen James, Peter Andrew Hosner, Kálmán Czeibert, Aubrey Keirnan, Ana Cecilia Castro Rodrigues Silva, Stig Walsh, Vera Weisbecker and Andrew N Iwaniuk, 5 August 2026, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlag123
Funding: Canada Foundation for Innovation, Grant/Award Number: 30215; Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Grant/Award Number: 2020–04899; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Grant/Award Number: CE170100015; Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, Grant/Award Number: FT180100634; Canada Research Chairs, Grant/Award Number: 232346.
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