page_title: Rodrigues solitaire
section_title: Reproduction
hierarchical_section_title: Rodrigues solitaire / Behaviour and ecology / Reproduction
caption_attribution_description: Sternum of female (1) and male (2) Rodrigues Solitaire.
context_page_description: The Rodrigues solitaire is an extinct flightless bird that was endemic to the island of Rodrigues, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. Genetically within the family of pigeons and doves, it was most closely related to the also extinct dodo of the nearby island Mauritius, the two forming the subfamily Raphinae. The Nicobar pigeon is their closest living genetic relative.
  Rodrigues solitaires grew to the size of swans, and demonstrated pronounced sexual dimorphism. Males were much larger than females and measured up to 90 centimetres in length and 28 kilograms in weight, contrasting with 70 centimetres and 17 kilograms for females. Its plumage was grey and brown; the female was paler than the male. It had a black band at the base of its slightly hooked beak, and its neck and legs were long. Both sexes were highly territorial, with large bony knobs on their wings that were used in combat. The Rodrigues solitaire laid a single egg that was incubated in turn by both sexes. Gizzard stones helped digest its food, which included fruit and seeds.
context_section_description: The most detailed account of the reproductive habits of the Rodrigues solitaire is Leguat's. He described mating and nesting as follows:
  When these Birds build their Nests, they choose a clean Place, gather together some Palm-Leaves for that purpose, and heap them up a foot and a half high from the Ground, on which they sit. They never lay but one Egg, which is much bigger than that of a Goose. The Male and Female both cover it in their turns, and the young is not hatch'd till at seven Weeks' end: All the while they are sitting upon it, or are bringing up their young one, which is not able to provide itself in several Months, they will not suffer any other Bird of their Species to come within two hundred Yards round of the Place; But what is very singular, is, the Males will never drive away the Females, only when he perceives one he makes a noise with his Wings to call to the Female, and she drives the unwelcome Stranger away, not leaving it till 'tis without her Bounds. The Female do's the same as to the Males, whom she leaves to the Male, and he drives them away. We have observ'd this several Times, and I affirm it to be true.
  The Combats between them on this occasion last sometimes pretty long, because the Stranger only turns about, and do's not fly directly from the Nest. However, the others do not forsake it till they have quite driven it out of their Limits. After these Birds have rais'd their young One, and left it to itself, they are always together, which the other Birds are not, and tho' they happen to mingle with other Birds of the same Species, these two Companions never disunite. We have often remark'd, that some Days after the young leaves the Nest, a Company of thirty or forty brings another young one to it, and the now fledg'd Bird, with its Father and Mother joyning with the Band, march to some bye Place. We frequently follow'd them, and found that afterwards the old ones went each their way alone, or in Couples, and left the two young ones together, which we call'd a Marriage.
  The clutch was described as consisting of a single egg; given the bird's large size, this led to proposals that the solitaire was K-selected, which means it produced a low number of altricial offspring, which required extensive parental care until maturity. The gathering of unrelated juveniles suggests that they formed crèches, which may have followed foraging adults as part of the learning process. A study of subfossil remains found that the carpal knob only developed after the bird reached skeletal maturity.
  Tafforet's account confirms Leguat's description of reproductive behaviour, adding that Rodrigues solitaires would even attack humans approaching their chicks:
  They do not fly at all, having no feathers to their wings, but they flap them, and make a great noise with their wings when angry, and the noise is something like thunder in the distance. They only ly, as I am led to suppose, but once in the year, and only one egg. Not that I have seen their eggs, for I have not been able to discover where they lay. But I have never seen but one little one alone with them, and, if any one tried to approach it, they would bite him very severely. These birds live on seeds and leaves of trees, which they pick up on the ground. They have a gizzard larger than the fist, and what is surprising is that there is found in it a stone of the size of a henn's egg, of oval shape, a little flattened, although this animal cannot swallow anything larger than a small cherry-stone. I have eaten them: they are tolerably well tasted.
  The size difference between sexes has led to the suggestion that the Rodrigues solitaire was not monogamous as stated by Leguat, and that this deeply religious man attributed the trait to the bird for moral reasons. It has been proposed that it was instead polygynous, and the wing-rattling behaviour described for males suggests lek-mating, where males gather for competitive mating display. However, size dimorphism does occur in some monogamous birds; most other pigeons are monogamous as well. A 2015 article proposed that ma
caption: Sternum of a female and male, 1879
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