An extinct flightless bird of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, in the pigeon and dove family; its closest living relative is the Nicobar pigeon. It stood about 63–75 cm tall and probably ate fruit. Hunting and introduced animals wiped it out by the 1660s.
Quick answers
What is it?Bird
Carnivore?No, herbivore
Dangerous?No
Domesticated?No
Awake when?Daytime
Hibernates?No
Kept as a pet?No
Do people eat it?In places
Sailors ate it, though early Dutch accounts do not agree on how good it tasted.
At a glance
Found inAfrica
ColoursGrey, Brown
SizeMedium
Height62.6–75 cm
Weight10.6–17.5 kg (estimated, in the wild)
Legs2
Covered inFeathers
Lives alone
Lives for10–20 years
Lays eggs
In the wild
- Where it lives
- Mauritius, east of Madagascar (now extinct).
- What it eats
- Probably fruit; it swallowed stones to help digest food.
- Conservation
- Extinct (IUCN Red List)
Did you know
Extinct within a century of humans reaching Mauritius, and it was a giant pigeon.
What it looked like is known only from 17th-century drawings, paintings and written accounts.
Its extinction went unnoticed at first, and some people later thought it was a myth.
Often confused with
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