When did the dodo become extinct?

As of 2015, the generally accepted date of extinction for the dodo is 1662, the date of the last reliable sighting. However, reports of sightings exist up through the end of the 1600s. Some date the extinction to 1681, due to an account of dodos hunted and eaten on Mauritius.

Dodos were native to the island of Mauritius, and went extinct only a few decades after the Dutch colonized the island. In 1674, an escaped slave named Simon claimed to have sighted a dodo, but his account had no corroboration. In 2003, a study published in Nature magazine suggested that the birds went extinct in 1690, based on the timing of the last known sightings.