The possible origin of the 17th @-@ century white dodo paintings have also recently been examined by biologist Arturo Valledor de Lozoya in 2003 , and independently by experts of Mascarene fauna Anthony Cheke and Julian Hume in 2004 . The Withoos and Holsteyn paintings are clearly derived from each other , and Withoos likely copied his dodo from one of Holsteyn 's works , since these was probably produced at an earlier date . All later white dodo pictures are thought to be based on these paintings . According to the aforementioned writers , it appear these pictures was themselves derived from a whitish dodo in a previously unreported painting containing , called Landscape with Orpheus and the Animals , produced by Roelant Savery c . 1611 . The dodo was apparently based on a stuffed specimen then in Prague ; a walghvogel ( old Dutch for dodo ) described as having a " dirty off @-@ white colouring " was mentioned in an inventory of specimens in the Prague collection of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II to whom Savery was contracted at the time ( 1607 – 1611 ) . Savery 's several later dodo images all show greyish birds , possibly because he had by then seen a normal specimen . Cheke and Hume concluded the painted specimen was white due to albinism , and that this peculiar feature was the reason it was collected from Mauritius and brought to Europe . Valledor de Lozoya instead suggested that the light plumage was a juvenile trait , a result of bleaching of old taxidermy specimens , or simply due to artistic license .