Dodos: Who's the dummy?

Dodo Bird  (1638 Painting)

Although love and trust are often equated, they may be two very different attributes.  That is why variations of the following expression have developed:  Love many, trust few, always paddle your own canoe.

Unfortunately, dodos didn’t get that memo.  They therefore trusted just about any person who crossed their path.  Rather than run for cover, they would vote these featherless newcomers onto the island.

Less than 100 years later, the people on Mauritius were multiplying, and the dodos were subtracted into extinction.  Because the dodos had been so trusting, friendly, welcoming and brave, the humans assumed that they were dumb.  In other words, it was considered “dumb” to habitually display such noble qualities.

This "dumb as a dodo” notion lasted for centuries. Lately, however, this assumption is being revisited.  Live Science reports that dodos “had brain-to-body sizes that are similar to those of modern pigeons.”  Pigeons are “very trainable and have mathematical abilities similar to those of rhesus monkeys.”

So who’s the dummy?  A bunch of fine feathered savants, or the intruders who blew every last one of them away?  

Resources

http://news.yahoo.com/dodo-birds-werent-dodos-143204241.html 

Copyright February 25, 2016 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved