EXTINCT. The large bird in this painting from the 1620s is the extinct dodo. The dodo was a flightless bird that lived only on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. When European explorers landed on the island in the mid-1500s, they began hunting the dodo for food and chopping down its forest home. Within 100 years of its first contact with humans, the dodo was extinct. (The dodo here may have been living in a royal zoo in Europe when it was painted.) (Image via Wikipedia) Read More