 Cauche 's account is problematic , since it also mentions that the bird he was describing had three toes and no tongue , unlike dodos . This led some to believe that Cauche was describing a new species of dodo ( " Didus nazarenus " ) . The description was most probably mingled with that of a cassowary , and Cauche 's writings have other inconsistencies . A mention of a " young ostrich " taken on board a ship in 1617 is the only other reference to a possible juvenile dodo . An egg claimed to be that of a dodo is stored in the museum of East London , South Africa . It was donated by Marjorie Courtenay @-@ Latimer , whose great aunt had received it from a captain who claimed to have found it in a swamp on Mauritius . In 2010 , the curator of the museum proposed using genetic studies to determine its authenticity . It may instead be an aberrant ostrich egg . 
