DEAD BUT NOT FORGOTTEN - ALL EYES ON THE LONG-EXTINCT DODO

The composite skeleton could fetch as much as £600,000 - maybe more

THE spotlight will fall on a long-extinct bird - the dodo - at a sale in London later this month.

A near-complete  skeleton of the flightless species is expected to fetch between £400,000 and £600,000 when it goes under the hammer at a Science and Natural History auction being staged by Christie’s on May 24.

Described as being in “great condition,” the skeleton (Lot 155 in the sale) is made up of fossilised bones from various dodo remains found in  Mauritian marshland  along with unfossilised bones found by the early 19th century  naturalist, Etienne Thiriou.

A distant relation of the pigeon family, the dodo was native to the island of Mauritius.

Less than 100 years after its existence was first recorded by Dutch sailors in 1598, the bird was extinct.

There are understood to be only 12 close-to-complete dodo skeletons in the world

Three years ago, another  composite specimen sold at auction for £346,300.

Also up for grabs at the forthcoming Christie's sale is a 2018 sculpture on wood and iron of a dodo - the work of 52-year-old Michele Vitaloni.

The sculpture, Lot 156, is expected to sell for between £20,000 and £40,000.

The sculpture by Vitaloni