 Anthony Cheke pointed out that some descriptions after 1662 use the names " Dodo " and " <unk> " when referring to the red rail , indicating that they had been transferred to it after the disappearance of the dodo itself . Cheke therefore points to the 1662 description as the last credible observation . A 1668 account by English traveller John Marshall , who used the names " Dodo " and " Red Hen " interchangeably for the red rail , mentioned that the meat was " hard " , which echoes the description of the meat in the 1681 account . Even the 1662 account has been questioned by Errol Fuller , as the reaction to distress cries matches what was described for the red rail . Until this explanation was proposed , a description of " dodos " from 1681 was thought to be the last account , and that date still has proponents . Recently accessible Dutch manuscripts indicate that no dodos were seen by settlers in 1664 – 1674 . It is unlikely the issue will ever be resolved , unless late reports mentioning the name alongside a physical description are rediscovered . The IUCN Red List accepts Cheke 's rationale for choosing the 1662 date , taking all subsequent reports to refer to red rails . In any case , the dodo was probably extinct by 1700 , about a century after its discovery in 1598 . The Dutch left Mauritius in 1710 , but by then the dodo and most of the large terrestrial vertebrates there had become extinct . 
