Mare aux Songes

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Mare aux Songes
Mare aux Songes.jpg
Map of the Mare aux Songes from 1866
Geographical location Mauritius , Mascarene Mountains
Location close to the shore Mahébourg
Data
Coordinates 20 ° 26 '31 "  S , 57 ° 43' 8"  O Coordinates: 20 ° 26 '31 "  S , 57 ° 43' 8"  O
Mare aux Songes (Mauritius)
Mare aux Songes

particularities

Fossil deposit in a swamp

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The Mare aux Songes is a marshland in the southeast of Mauritius near the coast. It is a fossil deposit where the subfossil remains of many animal species that became extinct in the Holocene have accumulated. The first subfossil remains of Dodos were brought to light here.

history

In 1865, George Clark, a schoolmaster from Mahébourg , found an abundance of subfossil dodo bones in the marsh of Mare aux Songes in southern Mauritius. Inspired by the monograph The Dodo and its Kindred (1848) by Strickland and Melville, Clark spent many years searching for remains of dodos. In 1866 he explained his approach in the ornithological journal The Ibis:

“After many unsuccessful site visits, I sent some men to the middle of the swamp where the water was about three feet (92 cm) deep. By feeling in the mud with their bare feet, they came across a complete tibia , a piece of another, and a tarsometatarsus . The dodo bones were only embedded in the mud of the groundwater in the deepest part of the swamp ... Encouraged by the success, I employed several workers who searched in the manner described. I came across only a few specimens of dodo bones, however, until it occurred to me to cut away a large mass of floating aquatic plants to a density of nearly two feet (61 cm) that covered the deepest part of the swamp. In the mud underneath I was rewarded by finding many dodo bones. "

Dodo skeleton from the Natural History Museum, which Richard Owen assembled from bones found in the Mare-aux-Songes swamp

Remains of over 300 dodos were found in the swamp, but there were very few skulls and wing bones underneath, which can be explained by the fact that the upper body was washed away or decomposed while the lower half was trapped in the mud. Similarly, many remains of moas have been discovered in the swamps of New Zealand. In 1889 Théodore Sauzier was commissioned to find more dodo remains in the Mare aux Songes. It was successful and also brought up the remains of other extinct species. Today, significant bone material from Dodos is stored in 26 museums around the world. Almost everything was found in Mare aux Songes.

In October 2005, after a hundred years of neglect, part of the Mare aux Songes was excavated by an international team of researchers. Many remains have been discovered, including bones of dodos at various stages of maturity and several bones preserved in their natural position, apparently from the skeleton of a single dodo. These finds were made available to the public in December 2005 in the Naturalis Museum in Leiden . 63 percent of the fossils discovered in the swamp belong to turtles of the extinct genus Cylindraspis , especially the species C. triserrata and C. inepta. 7.1 percent is fossil material from dodos, which was deposited over several centuries around 4,000 years ago. Subsequent excavations suggest that dodos and other animals got stuck in the Mare-aux-Songes swamp 4200 years ago while trying to reach water after a long period of drought.

In addition to Dodo and Cylindraspis bones, the remains of the following species were found in the Mare aux Songes fossil deposit: Reunion consecration ( Circus maillardi ), Mauritius fruit pigeon ( Alectroenas nitidissima ), Mascarene flying fox ( Pteropus niger ), rose pigeon ( Nesoenas mayeri ), Mauritius -Eule ( Mascarenotus sauzieri ), Flamingo ( Phoenicopterus roseus ), Mauritius duck ( Anas theodori ), Mauritius goose ( alopochen mauritianus ), Mauritius Falcon ( Falco punctatus ), Long-tailed Cormorant ( Phalacrocorax africanus ), Mauritius Gray Parrot ( Psittacula bensoni ), Mauritius night Heron ( Nycticorax mauritianus ) Typhlops cariei , Round Island Burrowing Boa ( Bolyeria multocarinata ), Mauritius parrot ( Lophopsittacus mauritianus ), Mauritius parakeet ( Psittacula echo ), Mascarene Coot ( fulica newtoni ), Mauritius Weber ( Foudia rubra ), Mauritius Riesenskink ( Leiolopisma mauritiana ) Mauritius rail ( Aphanapteryx bonasia ). as well as the snail species Tropidophora carinata and Plegma duponti

literature

  • Julian Pender Hume and Christine Taylor: A gift from Mauritius: William Curtis, George Clark and the Dodo. Journal of the History of Collections, 2016. doi: 10.1093 / jhc / fhw033

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Julian Pender Hume : The History of the Dodo Raphus cucullatus and the Penguin of Mauritius . (PDF) In: Historical Biology . 18, No. 2, 2006, pp. 69-93. ISSN  0891-2963 . doi : 10.1080 / 08912960600639400 .
  2. ↑ George Clark: Account of the late Discovery of Dodos' Remains in the Island of Mauritius . In: Ibis . 8, No. 2, April 1866, pp. 141-146. doi : 10.1111 / j.1474-919X.1866.tb06082.x .
  3. ^ Julian Pender Hume: Contrasting taphofacies in ocean island settings: the fossil record of Mascarene vertebrates . In: Proceedings of the International Symposium “Insular Vertebrate Evolution: the Palaeontological Approach”. Monographs de la Societat d'Història Natural de les Balears . 12, 2005, pp. 129-144.
  4. ^ E. Newton , H. Gadow : IX. On additional bones of the Dodo and other extinct birds of Mauritius obtained by Mr. Theodore Sauzier . In: The Transactions of the Zoological Society of London . 13, No. 7, 1893, pp. 281-302. doi : 10.1111 / j.1469-7998.1893.tb00001.x .
  5. ↑ Errol Fuller : Dodo - From Extinction To Icon . HarperCollins, London 2002, ISBN 978-0-00-714572-0 .
  6. ^ Anthony S. Cheke, Julian Pender Hume: Lost Land of the Dodo: an Ecological History of Mauritius, Réunion & Rodrigues . T. & AD Poyser, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7136-6544-4 , pp. 133, 398.
  7. ↑ Kenneth F. Rijsdijk, Julian Pender Hume, Frans Bunnik, FB Vincent Florens, Claudia Baider, Beth Shapiro, Hans (Johannes) Van der Plicht, Awar Janoo, Owen Griffiths, Lars W. van den Hoek Ostend, Holger Cremer, Tamara Vernimmen , Perry GB De Louw, Assenjee Bholah, Salem Saumtally, Nicolas Porch, James Haile, Mike Buckley, Matthew Collins, Edmund Gittenberger: Mid-Holocene vertebrate bone concentration deposit on oceanic island Mauritius provides a window into the ecosystem of the dodo ( Raphus cucullatus ) . In: Quaternary Science Reviews . 28, No. 1-2, January 2009, pp. 14-24. doi : 10.1016 / j.quascirev.2008.09.018 .
  8. ↑ Kenneth F. Rijsdijk, Jens Zinke, Perry GB de Louw, Julian Pender Hume, Hans (J.) Van der Plicht, Henry Hooghiemstra, Hanneke JM Meijer, Hubert B. Vonhof, Nick Porch, FB Vincent Florens, Claudia Baider, Bas van Geel, Joost Brinkkemper, Tamara Vernimmen, Anwar Janoo: Mid-Holocene (4200 kyr BP) mass mortalities in Mauritius (Mascarenes): Insular vertebrates resilient to climatic extremes but vulnerable to human impact . In: The Holocene . 21, No. 8, December 2011, pp. 1179-1194. doi : 10.1177 / 0959683611405236 .
  9. ^ Anthony S. Cheke, Julian Pender Hume: Lost Land of the Dodo: an Ecological History of Mauritius, Réunion & Rodrigues . T. & AD Poyser, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7136-6544-4 , p. 401.
  10. ↑ Alan Grihault: A study of Mare aux Songes in Mauritius: the site of the first discovery of Dodo bones in 1865 . (PDF) Presented at the 3rth Dodo Research Program Meeting held in Mauritius on December 2006.