 Until 1860 , the only known dodo remains were the four incomplete 17th @-@ century specimens . Philip Burnard Ayres found the first subfossil bones in 1860 , which were sent to Richard Owen at the British Museum , who did not publish the findings . In 1863 , Owen requested the Mauritian Bishop Vincent Ryan to spread word that he should be informed if any dodo bones were found . In 1865 , George Clark , the government schoolmaster at Mahébourg , finally found an abundance of subfossil dodo bones in the swamp of Mare aux Songes in Southern Mauritius , after a 30 @-@ year search inspired by Strickland and Melville 's monograph . In 1866 , Clark explained his procedure to The Ibis , an ornithology journal : he had sent his coolies to wade through the centre of the swamp , feeling for bones with their feet . At first they found few bones , until they cut away herbage that covered the deepest part of the swamp , where they found many fossils . The swamp yielded the remains of over 300 dodos , but very few skull and wing bones , possibly because the upper bodies were washed away or scavenged while the lower body was trapped . The situation is similar to many finds of moa remains in New Zealand marshes . Most dodo remains from the Mare aux Songes have a medium to dark brown colouration . 
