![]() ![]() ![]() Mysterious particles were found in the specimen during scans carried out to analyse its anatomy. WMG, a cutting-edge manufacturing and technology research unit at Warwick, employed its forensic scanning techniques and expertise to discover that the Dodo was shot in the neck and back of the head with a 17th-century shotgun. ![]() This unexpected twist in the long tale of the Oxford Dodo has come to light thanks to a collaboration between the Museum and the University of Warwick. For the first time, the manner of death of the museum’s iconic specimen has been revealed: a shot to the back of the head. If ever the Oxford Dodo were to have squawked, its final squawk may have been the saddest and loudest. Here’s an account from the Museum and the University of Warwick: But new research using methods pioneered in criminal forensics tells a very different story. The story long told was that Oxford University Museum’s rare specimen of the extinct Dodo, a native of the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, had been an exotic pet in the seventeenth century kept in a London townhouse. Shotgun pellets in flesh of the Oxford dodo. An excellent read.” ( BBC Focus magazine ) Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time by Richard Conniff is “Hilariously informative…This book will remind you why you always wanted to be a naturalist.” ( Outside magazine) “Field naturalist Conniff’s animal adventures … are so amusing and full color that they burst right off the page … a quick and intensely pleasurable read.” ( Seed magazine) “Conniff’s poetic accounts of giraffes drifting past like sail boats, and his feeble attempts to educate Vervet monkeys on the wonders of tissue paper will leave your heart and sides aching. “This beautifully written book has the verve of an adventure story” ( Wall St. The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earthby Richard Conniff is “a swashbuckling romp” that “brilliantly evokes that just-before Darwin era” ( BBC Focus) and “an enduring story bursting at the seams with intriguing, fantastical and disturbing anecdotes” ( New Scientist). I think the book is a masterpiece.” Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone and The Demon in the Freezer Conniff is a brilliant historian with a jeweler’s eye for detail. Ending Epidemics: A History of Escape from Contagion: “ Ending Epidemics is an important book, deeply and lovingly researched, written with precision and elegance, a sweeping story of centuries of human battle with infectious disease. ![]()
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