Humans and their associated cargo caused the extinction of the dodo. It has been postulated that the best way to get rid of pests and exotic invaders is to make them tasty or otherwise marketable.[b said:Quote[/b] (nepizumiae @ Dec. 29 2004,12:11)]Adaptability is my concern regarding Vikings. We have genuses like periplaneta americana = common american roach which has survived earthquakes, tsunamis for thousands of years. On the other hand we have the Dodo which was extincted hundreds of years ago.
If both were adapted to their own environments why the former is still around and why the latter disappeared?
There is a good discussion about the dodo at
http://www.bagheera.com/inthewild/ext_dodobird.htm
Here is an excerpt:
[b said:Quote[/b] ]In 1505, the Portuguese became the first humans to set foot on Mauritius. The island quickly became a stopover for ships engaged in the spice trade. Weighing up to 50 pounds, the dodo was a welcome source of fresh meat for the sailors. Large numbers of dodos were killed for food.
Later, when the Dutch used the island as a penal colony, pigs and monkeys were brought to the island along with the convicts. Many of the ships that came to Mauritius also had uninvited rats aboard, some of which escaped onto the island. Before humans and other mammals arrived the dodo had little to fear from predators. The rats, pigs and monkeys made short work of vulnerable dodo eggs in the ground nests.
The combination of human exploitation and introduced species significantly reduced dodo populations. Within 100 years of the arrival of humans on Mauritius, the once abundant dodo was a rare bird. The last one was killed in 1681.