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Description: | This specimen was made by the famous London taxidermy company Rowland Ward and bought for the museum in 1938. Dodo models were made using plaster casts of feet and a head. These were attached to a body covered in chicken or goose feathers with whole chicken wings added. The tail was made using tufts of ostrich or goose feathers.
Most models are based on paintings by seventeenth and eighteenth century artists. These usually show fat dodos with short legs. However, hardly any artists would have seen a real live Dodo and the paintings were probably based on crude taxidermy mounts. Since taxidermy as an art form was not well developed at this time it is unlikely that these mounts would be accurate (as with our Walrus).
Today, scientists working on Dodo bones have been able to develop a more accurate picture of what Dodos might have looked like. It seems that Dodos were probably much slimmer than this specimen and with longer legs.
Model of Dodo by Rowland Ward.
caption: Left side of object no. NH.38.34.
caption: Left oblique view of object no. NH.38.34. | Publisher: | http://www.horniman.ac.uk/ | Rights holder: | Horniman Museum and Gardens | Subjects: | Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) modelling taxidermy mount | Source: | Horniman Museum | Identifier: | oai:oai.horniman.ac.uk:object-190338 | Go to resource |
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