Every Dodo You’ve Ever Seen Is Probably Wrong. These Aren’t.

Every picture you’ve ever seen of a dodo is probably wrong. The chunky, goofy bird from Alice in Wonderland, cartoons, memes, and museum gift shops mostly come from a single painting that helped shape the world’s image of the dodo for centuries. And it wasn’t very accurate. But while Europe was falling in love with this famously inaccurate version of the bird, painted by a man who had only ever seen a very overstuffed dodo, other artists, working under different constraints, were painting something very different. In this film, we follow art historian Marine Saussier as she traces the dodo through centuries of paintings, royal collections, Mughal courts, and forgotten artworks to uncover what the most famous depictions of the dodo got wrong, and which paintings may offer the best clues to what the bird truly looked like. That information is invaluable to the scientists at Colossal Biosciences working to bring the dodo back. Alongside ancient DNA, genomics, computational biology, and a whole suite of other sciences, de-extinction requires something surprisingly simple: knowing what the animal actually looked like. That’s why Marine is sharing her research with Colossal’s scientists, helping answer questions about the bird’s true morphology and more. Because bringing back the dodo isn’t just about ancient DNA. This is the story of the art that created the myth of the dodo, the art helping uncover the truth, and the science working to bring the bird back from extinction. SUBSCRIBE to follow our innovations: https://bit.ly/3KqNZAy FOLLOW Colossal to stay ahead of every breakthrough: Instagram:   / colossal   TikTok:   / colossal   X:   / colossal   Facebook:   / itiscolossal   LinkedIn:   / colossal   About Colossal Biosciences: MAKING EXTINCTION A THING OF THE PAST. Colossal is a breakthrough bioscience and genetic engineering company that builds radical new technologies to advance the field of genomics. Colossal Biosciences creates disruptive technologies for extinct species restoration, critically endangered species protection and the repopulation of critical ecosystems that support the continuation of life on Earth. The company is the first to apply CRISPR technology for the purposes of species de-extinction. Colossal is accepting humanity’s duty to restore Earth to a healthier state, while also solving for the future economies and biological necessities of the human condition through cutting-edge science and technologies.