 Strickland and Melville established that the dodo was anatomically similar to pigeons in many features . They pointed to the very short keratinous portion of the beak , with its long , slender , naked basal part . Other pigeons also have bare skin around their eyes , almost reaching their beak , as in dodos . The forehead was high in relation to the beak , and the nostril was located low on the middle of the beak and surrounded by skin , a combination of features shared only with pigeons . The legs of the dodo were generally more similar to those of terrestrial pigeons than of other birds , both in their scales and in their skeletal features . Depictions of the large crop hinted at a relationship with pigeons , in which this feature is more developed than in other birds . Pigeons generally have very small clutches , and the dodo is said to have laid a single egg . Like pigeons , the dodo lacked the vomer and septum of the nostrils , and it shared details in the mandible , the zygomatic bone , the palate , and the hallux . The dodo differed from other pigeons mainly in the small size of the wings and the large size of the beak in proportion to the rest of the cranium . 
