The dodo bird was a species of flightless bird that once inhabited the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. It was a large bird, reaching over a meter in height and weighing more than 20 kilograms, with an appearance similar to a pigeon and a close relative of the pigeon. In 1507, when the Portuguese arrived on the island of Mauritius, they named this bird, which was obese, had short, thick legs, and small wings, the dodo (dodo, which means stupid in Portuguese). Due to their clumsy gait, they were easily captured. In 1681, the last dodo bird was shot, and the species subsequently disappeared from the Earth.
Although there may have been various causes of the dodo's extinction, such as hurricanes and floods, most experts studying the dodo believe that humans should be responsible for its extinction. It was the excessive hunting of the slow-moving dodo by Europeans, as well as the cats and dogs they brought that preyed on the dodo's eggs and young birds, that caused the number of dodos to plummet to extinction in less than 200 years.