The birds were first seen by Portuguese sailors about 1507 and were exterminated by humans and their introduced animals. The dodo was extinct by 1681, the Réunion solitaire by 1746, and the Rodrigues solitaire by about 1790.

Why did the dodo become extinct?

Reasons for extinction: The dodo only lived on one island - Mauritius. ... The dodo's natural habitat was almost completely destroyed after people started settling on Mauritius. And when pigs, cats and monkeys were introduced, they added to the problem by eating the dodo and its eggs.

When did the dodo go extinct?

Here we use a statistical method to establish the actual extinction time of the dodo as 1690, almost 30 years after its most recent sighting. Its last confirmed sighting was in 1662, although an escaped slave claimed to have seen the bird as recently as 1674.