I'm so glad my kitchen only has one door, and can be closed off. Been looking throught the new Lakeland catalogue and thinking of buying those Toastie bags that let you make toasted sandwiches in a toaster.
Not sure if the Toast Marketing Board knows about them.

From a websearch:

Diet: The dodo ate ripe fruit that fell to the ground, eating the fruit of the Calvaria major tree (which is often called the dodo tree). This long-living tree is now in danger of extinction since it depended on the dodo for its own reproduction; its seed can only germinate (sprout) after going through the digestive system of the dodo (the seed has a very thick coating). Scientists have found that turkeys have a similar digestive system to that of the dodo, and can stand in for the dodo in processing the seeds, perhaps saving the dodo tree.



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"I've often said that the difference between British and American SF TV series is that the British ones have three-dimensional characters and cardboard spaceships, while the Americans do it the other way around."
--Ross Smith

Wow! It's truly amazing what you can find on the Internet, isn't it?



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

also amazing how long it takes to find something really useful, sometimes. I wanted to research sideshows, of the travelling fairground variety, for a western. Try Googling 'sideshows' and see how many hits you get about freaks. The web is a scary place.

From other websites:

Food Habits
Scientists thoughts on the diet of the dodo are based mainly on speculation. Some sailors' accounts talk of watching dodos wade into water-pools to catch fish. They have been described as "strong and greedy" hunters. What really fascinated the visitors to Mauritius, however, was the fact that dodos seemed to eat stones and iron frequently and with no trouble. It is now surmised that the rocks eased digestion. (Strickland and Melville, 1848) (Fuller, 1987)

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Less widely know is the dodo tree. Only thirteen of these trees still survive, and all of them have stood for more than three hundred years. Even though the trees' fruit ripen and drop, not one seed had sprouted.

Struck by this mystery, one scientist speculated that the trees fruit might have comprised a major part of the dodo's diet. Perhaps the hard seeds germinated only after they had been abraded in the dodo's powerful gizzard. To test this theory, he fed the fruit to the domestic turkeys. After the seeds passed through their digestive system, several sprouted- the first in over three centuries.

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The dodo’s diet appears to have had much in common with pigeons. It fed on various plant materials, including fruit and tough seed. Large numbers of pebbles have been found among dodo remains, which suggest that, similar to other seed-eating birds, the dodo swallowed pebbles and stored them in its gizzard (stomach) to help it crush and digest its coarse food.

H'mm... better keep my amethyst chip necklace away from Dido, then!



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

I once knew a particularly dumb dog called Susie. She once picked up a plum that had fallen from a tree. She ate the plum and spat out the stone, looked at the stone thoughtfully, then ate it.....!

Just thought I'd bump this thread to the top, since the topic has come up again and I'm too lazy to copy what I said to that thread.



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"I've often said that the difference between British and American SF TV series is that the British ones have three-dimensional characters and cardboard spaceships, while the Americans do it the other way around."
--Ross Smith

Mildred eats chocolate and fudge in abundance, but then she's not a typical dodo exactly...



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There's a hole in my creativity bucket and it's all leaked out.

How close exactly are we to cloning dodos?

I suspect the quality of the DNA available is pretty bad. It's probably fragmented, with bits missing and thus useful only for comparing gene sequences to those of other animals to see how closely related they are (which has been done), rather than for cloning which at this point requires intact choromosomes so far as I'm aware.

In Thursday's world, they've obviously figured out a way to patch the missing parts of the sequence with DNA from other birds (preferably dove, but apparently flamingo works too, with odd results). And they apparently still had glitches, such as a lack of wings in pre 1.7 models, and oddities in the sleep cycle (according to Thursday), and some rather strange looking dodos in the vet's office illustration that didn't make it into TEA:

[www.jasperfforde.com]

To quote that page:

Firstly and central to the picture is Pickwick himself, looking like every other pet that one might have taken to vet to have a jab or something. He has no wings because he's a Version 1.2 and they didn't get the sequence complete until V 1.7. The dodos queuing up with their owners in front of a desk clerk named Crick(1) are all different shapes and sizes (2) indicating that gene splicing is not an exact art and all the owners are talking about the different versions - the same way car enthusiasts might compare engine sizes.

(1) Crick and Watson and Wilkins and Franklin discovered the nature and importance of DNA in the fifties. I think Mycroft probably had a hand in it, too.
(2) One has a peacock's tail. Another has three legs.

Another page I haven't seen yet! I find something new every time I come on here.

But surely it should be 'Pickwick HERself?'



I drink to drown my sorrows. Unfortunately they've learnt how to swim.

Ah, but at the time Thursday (and possibly Jasper) thought Pickwick was a he.

Ok - wasn't sure when it was written <grin>



I drink to drown my sorrows. Unfortunately they've learnt how to swim.