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Description
*Simba vs Scar music plays*
A pair of Rodrigues solitaires engage in a fierce territorial battle

560 km east of Mauritius lies the small island of Rodrigues, which was once home to a plethora of endemic flora & fauna, the most famous of which was the Rodrigues Solitaire. This large flightless pigeon (yes pigeon again) was a close relative of the much more famous dodo, both having evolved from a common ancestor that had arrived separately on Mauritius and then on Rodrigues. While the dodo was reportedly of mild temperament, the solitaire was anything but. Resources were more limited on Rodrigues as compared to Mauritius, which forced the birds to be highly territorial. Solitaires had bony knobs on their wings similar to some other birds living today, and likely used them for the same purpose: for clobbering each other. They were reported as being highly aggressive, beating each other up with their wing-clubs and making loud calls that could be heard from 100s of metres away.
The solitaire went extinct sometime around 1730-1750, nearly a century after the dodo’s extinction. This was most likely bcoz Rodrigues was less frequented by #humans than Mauritius was, and also probably bcoz its aggression made it less of an easy target for the dogs, cats & other invasive animals humans brought with them, but was still unable to survive the onslaught. Today, there are only 2 species of endemic birds & 1 species of endemic mammal left on Rodrigues, the rest along with the giant tortoises & day geckos that once called the island home bit the dust centuries ago due to habitat destruction.

This was much more difficult to create than the dodo, bcoz though it survived longer, there are no soft tissue remains, and while a living dodo was illustrated quite accurately (by an Indian no less), the only illustration of a living solitaire is a very simple one. Luckily there are plenty of complete skeletons so just like 3dmodelling a dinosaur I created it using just a skeleton as reference.

Tools: Blender, Substance Painter, Photoshop
Time: 12.5 hrs

Description
*Simba vs Scar music plays*
A pair of Rodrigues solitaires engage in a fierce territorial battle

560 km east of Mauritius lies the small island of Rodrigues, which was once home to a plethora of endemic flora & fauna, the most famous of which was the Rodrigues Solitaire. This large flightless pigeon (yes pigeon again) was a close relative of the much more famous dodo, both having evolved from a common ancestor that had arrived separately on Mauritius and then on Rodrigues. While the dodo was reportedly of mild temperament, the solitaire was anything but. Resources were more limited on Rodrigues as compared to Mauritius, which forced the birds to be highly territorial. Solitaires had bony knobs on their wings similar to some other birds living today, and likely used them for the same purpose: for clobbering each other. They were reported as being highly aggressive, beating each other up with their wing-clubs and making loud calls that could be heard from 100s of metres away.
The solitaire went extinct sometime around 1730-1750, nearly a century after the dodo’s extinction. This was most likely bcoz Rodrigues was less frequented by #humans than Mauritius was, and also probably bcoz its aggression made it less of an easy target for the dogs, cats & other invasive animals humans brought with them, but was still unable to survive the onslaught. Today, there are only 2 species of endemic birds & 1 species of endemic mammal left on Rodrigues, the rest along with the giant tortoises & day geckos that once called the island home bit the dust centuries ago due to habitat destruction.

This was much more difficult to create than the dodo, bcoz though it survived longer, there are no soft tissue remains, and while a living dodo was illustrated quite accurately (by an Indian no less), the only illustration of a living solitaire is a very simple one. Luckily there are plenty of complete skeletons so just like 3dmodelling a dinosaur I created it using just a skeleton as reference.

Tools: Blender, Substance Painter, Photoshop
Time: 12.5 hrs