For centuries, the dodo has been the butt of jokes, its name becoming shorthand for anyone considered dim-witted, hopeless or destined to fail.
But it turns out the famously ‘stupid’ bird may have been getting a bad rap all along.
Scientists now say the extinct species was no less intelligent than modern pigeons – birds capable of recognising human faces, solving puzzles and even learning to read simple words.
Researchers used CT scans to reconstruct the brains of dodos and compared them with those of other pigeons.
They found the region linked to cognition and memory was exactly the size expected for a pigeon of the dodo's body size.
