Dodo

« "The Dodo was renowned for being slow, stupid and harmless." »

— Tom

Dodo
Creature Properties
Home time period	Late Holocene epoch
Type	Bird
In the Primeverse
Appearances	Episode 1.4

Dodos were flightless, trusting birds, famously known for becoming extinct in the 17th Century due to rats and hunting by dogs and humans.

Characteristics

The Dodo was a flightless bird which stood about one metre tall and weighed twenty kilograms. Though clumsy, Dodos were still fast and elusive and able to easily slip and scatter between groups of larger animals and evade them and cause confusion through this. Dodos were passive and friendly in behaviour, as well as curious and trusting, due to the initial lack of predators in their time and habitat.

Incursions and encounters

Nick Cutter with a flock of Dodos. (Episode 1.4)

Episode 1.4

Five Dodos, at least two of which were carrying Parasites, travelled through a Spaghetti Junction into a football stadium kitchen in the present. The Dodos immediately scattered across the kitchen from the Home Office Anomaly team and the Special Forces. One of the Parasite-infected Dodos escaped from the stadium into the car park outside, where it was found by Tom and Duncan and taken in their camper van back to their flat, while the other Dodos were round up by the team.

A Dodo infected with the Parasite experiencing the symptoms of bluish eyes and violent episodes of aggression. (Episode 1.4)

The Home Office team sent all of the Dodos they'd round up back through the Anomaly to the Spaghetti Junction, except for one which died of the Parasite before it could be sent back through. The dead Dodo was subsequently taken back to the Home Office for an autopsy, where it was x-rayed and dissected.

Meanwhile, the infected Dodo (Dodi) that Tom and Duncan were keeping at their flat began to fall under the Parasite's influence and go into increasing episodes of aggression; ripping Duncan's MP3, vomiting on Tom's Converse shoes, destroying the TV after being startled by a dinosaur film on it, and biting Tom and passing the Parasite on to him. Duncan eventually locked Dodi in his bedroom, where the Dodo tried to destroy the room's light due to light sensitivity caused by the Parasite, and tried to attack Duncan and break out when Duncan tried to calm the Dodo down.

An X-ray of a Dodo killed by a Parasite. (Episode 1.4)

Dodi eventually died from the Parasite in Duncan's bedroom, and the dead Dodo was subsequently retrieved by the Home Office team and sent to Abby at the Central Metropolitan University for an autopsy. Abby and Tom took the dead Dodi with them back to the football stadium.

Other references

The Anomaly Research Centre's skeletal diagram. (Series 2)

Series 2/Series 3

A picture of a Dodo skeletal diagrams and factual information was present on a backlit information board in one of the labs at the Anomaly Research Centre.

Episode 3.3

The Home Office's X-ray of the first Parasite-infected Dodo was seen in Cutter's office at the ARC.

Episode 4.7

When James Lester asked Danny Quinn if Helen Cutter was dead, he replied "as a Dodo."

Real life

The Dodo was a flightless bird; which was approximately 62.6-75 centimetres (2.05-2.46 feet) tall and weighed an estimated 10.6-17.5 kilograms (23-39 pounds). Little is known for certain about the Dodo's behaviour and habitat, but in pop culture it is regarded as a clumsy and unintelligent animal (though this is believed to have actually been trusting nature due to the initial lack of predators in the Dodo's habitat). Dodos were endemic to the island of Mauritius in the Late Holocene, until the discovery and subsequent hunting of Dodos by humans and the resulting invasive introduction of dogs and other pests into the Dodo's environment resulted in the Dodos becoming extinct during the 17th Century.

Trivia

The different design of the Dodo used as promotional material.

• There is one known Primeval promotional image which features a design of the Dodo different to its actual depiction in the show; with smaller, beadier eyes, and a slightly less contrasted colour with some dashes of brown.
• Of all the creature incursions, the Dodos are the most recently extinct; dying out in the 17th Century, whereas most other encountered creatures from the past went extinct thousands - millions of years ago.

References

Series 1 Creatures

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