Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.14057

    Dodo skull

    Date
    1830
    Creator
    Georges Cuvier (1769 - 1832, French) , Naturalist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (print): 195mm
    width (print): 157mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > animal
          > bird
    Description
    Rough sketch showing three views of the skull of the Dodo Raphus cucullatus.

    The drawing appears in a letter from Baron Cuvier to William Buckland, 3 August 1830. Cuvier was soliciting detailed drawings of the Dodo specimen held by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and used these sketches to indicate his preferred views of the bird’s head. Cuvier’s intention was to compare the completed drawings with new specimens obtained on the Island of Rodrigues, near Mauritius.

    Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier (1769-1832), known as Georges Cuvier, French naturalist and zoologist, was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1806.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Africa
          > Mauritius
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