out there that could reveal more about the curious bird?

The marsh, known as the Mare aux Songes, was chock-full of bones

For years, the hunt for more bones was unsuccessful. Things changed in 1865, coincidentally the year Carroll published his book, when labourers began installing a rail line to one of the island's sugar plantations.

"According to stories, it was noticed that some of the labourers were collecting bones out of this marshy area, probably to grind up to use as fertiliser on their own small land plots," says Claessens. "The railway engineer took some of the bones to the local schoolmaster, George Clark, and by comparing the bones with Strickland and Melville's book they realised they had dodo remains."

The marsh, known as the Mare aux Songes, was chock-full ofbones, which we now know to be about 4,000 years old. Dodo remains soon began winging their way back to Europe's great scientists.

The following year, Richard Owen in London became the first scientist to publish a monograph on the new remains.

One of the leading anatomists of his time, Owen is one of a handful of people with a legitimate claim to have "discovered" the dinosaurs. But he is remembered today as much for his nefarious schemes to undermine his contemporaries as for his brilliant anatomical work.

It's almost as if Thirioux found his dodos at the wrong time

True to form, Owen claimed the honour of describing the Mare aux Songes bones by intercepting and buying a shipment that was intended for another anatomist, Alfred Newton at Cambridge – much