Extinct Bird Art

This week, the Atkins Institute steps outside its usual bounds to present a small art show, featuring two artists who have interpreted extinct birds in very different ways.

First, Charley Harper, a wonderful illustrator (who, sadly, died very recently). Harper specialized in a very graphic, geometrical style of illustration that, despite its apparent simplicity, managed to be entirely realistic in its evocation of of the natural world. On the website of the Treadway Gallery, I found images of a series of prints Harper did of extinct birds, including the great auk, the Eskimo curlew, and the passenger pigeon, previously discussed here at the Institute. (Visit the Treadway website for more beautiful Charley Harper prints.)

Next, Harri Kallio, a Finnish photographer and sculptor who now lives in New York. I don't know a lot about Kallio, but last year, his images of dodos—alive and poignantly, enigmatically walking the shores of Mauritius, or transformed into metallic automatons—kept calling to me. If you like these, see Kallio's website for more examples of his work.

The Dodo (Raphus cucullatus)

Perhaps the most famous animal to vanish in the modern age, the dodo has become synonymous with extinction. The large, flightless relative of the pigeon lived happily on the island of Mauritius until 1507. That's when Europeans arrived, bringing with them a collection of predatory rats, pigs, monkeys, and dogs.

The dodo had no real predators before the Europeans came. After thousands of peaceful years on Mauritius, the bird had evolved a sense of security so fixed as to resemble stupidity. Dodos laid only one egg a year, and they laid them on leafy nests on the ground, where they were vulnerable to anyone who cared to take them. Although these relatives of the pigeon probably had the ability to fly at some point, evolution eliminated it, and the birds' wings became more or less ornamental appendages. But the flightless dodo wasn't very good at running, either. It was easy to catch, and while reports vary as to its tastiness, no one disputes that it was regularly eaten.

Living its haplessly innocent life on Mauritius, the dodo bird just didn't know what hit it. The last of the dodos, hunted and tormented to death, probably perished in 1681.

Now, we use the dodo's name to indicate either someone hopelessly out of date or a ditz or flake. The dodo is known for a comical appearance and feckless character. For hundreds of years, it was believed that the dodo's stomach dragged on the ground when it tried to run, and its name supposedly derives from a slang term roughly analogous to "fat [butt]." But recently, scientists have been on a crusade to rescue the dodo's reputation. Here's a video podcast, written and edited by Jennifer Rae Atkins and read by Ted Slampyak, about the dodo's image makeover.

The Institute's New Operating Schedule

Because of very pressing matters related to our livelihood, the Atkins Institute announces that it will begin a weekly schedule, effective immediately and continuing indefinitely. Every Monday (rather than every weekday), the Institute will introduce an extinct animal. Because only one species will be featured each week, instead of five, the Institute will make every effort to describe the animal at greater length. Thank you for your continued support of the Atkins Institute of Extinct Animals.

The Lake Titicaca Orestias (Orestias cuvieri)

The yellowish fish with the upturned jaw lived in Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake, on the border of Peru and Bolivia. In 1937, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service introduced lake trout from the Great Lakes into Lake Titicaca. By the 1940s, the Orestias cuvieri was gone. (Ironically, the lake trout is now extinct its its native lakes, and survives only where it was introduced in South America.)

UPDATE: Atkins Institute special adviser Jack Atkins has alerted the institute that the parenthetical statement above is not true. The lake trout is still alive and well in the Great Lakes. We at the Atkins Institute regret the error, and know not where to place the blame.

The Round Island Burrowing Boa (Bolyeria multocarinata)

This snake once lived on Round Island, a tiny place off the coast of Mauritius: it was found nowhere else in the world. People introduced goats and rabbits to the island, and their grazing probably disrupted the soil enough to destroy the burrowing boa’s habitat. Last seen in 1975, the boa has been declared extinct, but expeditions occasionally set out in search of signs of its existence.

The Atkins Institute of Extinct Animals will return on Monday.

The Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis)

The Carolina parakeet was the only parrot native to the United States. Brilliant green with a yellow and orange head, it was common in the southeastern and mid-Atlantic states. Carolina parakeets pestered farmers, and were nearly killed off by the end of the 19th century. Then the honeybees took over. Stronger in number, the bees appropriated the Carolina parakeets’ nesting places. Like the last passenger pigeon, the last Carolina parakeet died at the Cincinnati Zoo, in 1918.

John James Audubon, who painted the illustration seen here, wrote:

"The Parakeets are destroyed in great numbers, for whilst busily engaged in plucking off the fruits or tearing the grain from the stacks, the husbandman approaches them with perfect ease, and commits great slaughter among them. All the survivors rise, shriek, fly round about for a few minutes, and again alight on the very place of most imminent danger. The gun is kept at work; eight or ten, or even twenty, are killed at every discharge. The living birds, as if conscious of the death of their companions, sweep over their bodies, screaming as loud as ever, but still return to the stack to be shot at, until so few remain alive, that the farmer does not consider it worth his while to spend more of his ammunition."

The Carolina Parakeet in Audubon's Birds of America.

The Tarpan (Equus ferus ferus)

This small, hardy wild horse roamed Europe and Asia for thousands of years. As human populations increased, the tarpan’s needs conflicted with those of farmers. That conflict, along with the tarpan’s popularity for cross-breeding with domestic horses, eventually meant the end of the species. The last wild tarpan died in 1879, and the last died in captivity soon after. People have tried to “breed back” the tarpan through its domestic descendents, and today some “genetic recreations" of the horse do exist.

Like that of the aurochs, the tarpan's image is preserved on the cave walls at Lascaux and Chauvet.

North American Tarpan Association

The Institute is moving this week, and while we will make every effort to keep up with our studies, please be patient, and rest assured that should we fall behind, we will catch up as soon as we can.