Deep in a remote Samoan rainforest, field researchers have just confirmed something many biologists had quietly stopped expecting to see in their lifetimes: a living cousin of the Dodo, still clinging on in the wild. The bird, known locally as the manumea, is the last known member of its genus and has long been treated as a symbol of how close the world might be to repeating the Dodo’s story.
The new sighting, emerging from a targeted survey in rugged terrain, does more than add a rare species to a checklist. It suggests that a bird once feared lost forever may still have a fighting chance, if Samoa and the wider conservation community can move quickly enough to protect what remains of its forest home.
The “little dodo” that refused to vanish
The manumea has carried an almost mythical status among ornithologists because it is a close relative of the Dodo and the last surviving representative of its “little dodo” lineage. Locally, people have long described it as a strange hybrid, a pigeon with the hooked beak of a parrot and the silhouette of a small raptor, a description that matches detailed profiles of the bird’s heavy body and distinctive bill in Samoa’s national bird. That unusual anatomy is not just cosmetic, it reflects a deep evolutionary history that links the forests of Samoa to the lost ecosystems of Mauritius where the Dodo once lived.
Conservation storytellers have leaned into that connection, calling the manumea the “little dodo” and warning that it might already have slipped into the same oblivion. Earlier this year, a widely shared campaign video opened with the line that “They called it the ‘little dodo’ and feared it was lost forever,” before pivoting to the revelation that the manumea still survives in the forests of Samoa and urging support for protecting the remaining birds. That message, captured in a viral reel that stressed how “They” had nearly written the species off, framed the bird’s survival as a second chance to avoid another Dodo-scale loss and highlighted new efforts focused on the manumea and ensuring its survival in Samoa’s forests.
A rare sighting in a remote Samoan stronghold
The latest breakthrough came from a focused field effort in one of Samoa’s most inaccessible rainforest regions, where dense canopy and steep ridges have long limited systematic surveys. During a multiweek expedition that stretched from Oct into Nov, teams working with The Samoa Conservation Society, often abbreviated as SCS, documented five separate manumea encounters, a tally that immediately stood out against years of near silence. Those records, gathered as part of a structured survey that combined visual searches with listening for the bird’s calls, were detailed in a report that described the manumea as a critically endangered ground-dwelling pigeon and emphasized how each sighting could represent one of the last individuals of its kind in the remote Samoan rainforest.
Those five encounters did not happen by chance. The SCS team had designed its Oct to Nov survey to revisit historical strongholds and to test whether the bird might persist in pockets of intact habitat that had escaped logging and agricultural expansion. By carefully logging each observation, including the location and behavior of the birds, the researchers built a case that at least a handful of manumea still move through these forests, even as the species edges closer to what one analysis described as “potentially signalling its impending extinction.” The same report stressed that the manumea is now considered the last living member of its “little dodo” genus, a status that magnifies the stakes of every confirmed record and underpins the urgency of the SCS field survey.
Why scientists call it the Dodo’s closest living relative
Biologists do not invoke the Dodo lightly. When they describe the manumea as the Dodo’s closest living relative, they are pointing to shared ancestry within a small group of large, ground-inclined pigeons that once ranged across parts of the Indian Ocean and Pacific. Genetic and anatomical studies have repeatedly linked the Dodo to pigeons rather than to more distantly related flightless birds, and the manumea’s heavy body, reduced flight behavior and robust, tooth-like bill fit that pattern. Recent coverage of the Samoan sightings has underscored this connection, describing the bird as the Dodo’s closest living relative in the South Pacific and highlighting how its survival offers a living window into a lineage that otherwise disappeared with the Dodo itself in the South Pacific rainforest.
That evolutionary framing is not just a curiosity for taxonomists. It shapes how conservationists talk about the bird to the public, and how they justify the resources needed to protect it. When a species is introduced as the Dodo’s closest living relative, it immediately evokes a cautionary tale about human-driven extinction, from overhunting to habitat loss. Reports on the Samoan bird have leaned into that narrative, explaining that the manumea’s unusual beak and stocky build are part of what makes it such a compelling analogue to the Dodo, and that its precarious status today mirrors the pressures that once pushed the Dodo over the edge. In that sense, every confirmed manumea sighting is a reminder that the Dodo’s story is not just history, it is a live test of whether people can change course in time to save a species that stands in for an entire lost branch of the tree of life.
A national bird on the brink in Samoa
For Samoa, the manumea is more than a scientific curiosity, it is the national bird and a cultural touchstone that appears in stories, artwork and local identity. Samoan guides often introduce it as the manuha, a name that captures its status as a bird of the forest and a symbol of the islands’ natural heritage, and they describe it in vivid terms as a pigeon with a parrot-like hooked beak and the profile of a bird of prey. That combination of traits, showcased in educational videos about the manumea’s role as the national bird of Samoa, has helped cement its image as a uniquely Samoan species that cannot simply be replaced by a similar pigeon elsewhere.
Yet the same reports that celebrate the manumea’s national status also warn that it is critically endangered and may be down to only a handful of breeding pairs. Conservation updates from within Samoa have described the bird as “Samoa’s critically endangered national bird” and have treated each new sighting as a rare piece of good news against a backdrop of decline. One such account, written by Isaac Rounds, detailed how The Manumea was sighted again in Uafato, a forested area on the island, and framed the observation as evidence that the species still clings to life in pockets of suitable habitat. That report, which explicitly referred to The Manumea and to Samoa’s responsibility for its fate, underscored how closely the bird’s future is tied to local decisions about land use and conservation in Uafato and beyond.
How the manumea keeps Samoa’s forests alive
Ecologists have long argued that losing the manumea would not only erase a unique evolutionary lineage, it would also disrupt the way Samoan forests regenerate. The bird is known to feed on large native fruits, using its powerful, tooth-like bill to crack tough outer layers and swallow seeds that smaller pigeons cannot handle. By moving across the forest floor and through the lower canopy, it then disperses those large seeds over distance, effectively planting the next generation of canopy trees in places where seedlings have a chance to take root. Recent analyses of the species’ role in Samoa’s ecosystems have emphasized that the bird plays a key role in dispersing these large seeds and that this behavior helps maintain the structure and diversity of Samoa’s forest ecosystem in Samoa’s forests.
From a conservation planning perspective, that seed dispersal role means the manumea functions as a kind of keystone species for certain tree communities. If it disappears, some of the largest-seeded trees may struggle to reproduce effectively, especially in fragmented landscapes where other dispersers are scarce. Over time, that could shift the composition of the forest, favoring species with smaller seeds that can be carried by wind or by more common birds, and reducing the prevalence of the very trees that define Samoa’s old-growth rainforest. By tying the bird’s fate to the health of the forest itself, scientists and local advocates have been able to argue that saving the manumea is not just about preventing one extinction, it is about preserving the living infrastructure that supports water, soil stability and biodiversity across the islands.
Inside the surveys that proved the bird is still here
Confirming that the manumea still survives in the wild has required a level of persistence and methodological rigor that goes far beyond casual birdwatching. The Samoa Conservation Society’s latest field survey, which ran from Oct 17 to Nov 13, combined systematic transect walks with targeted listening sessions at dawn and dusk, when the birds are most likely to call. Teams documented not only visual sightings but also vocalizations and indirect signs, such as feeding marks on fruits that match the manumea’s distinctive bill pattern. The resulting dataset, which recorded five sightings over the course of the expedition, was enough to convince skeptical observers that the species is still present in at least one remote Samoan rainforest stronghold, even if its numbers remain perilously low in the SCS-led survey.
Those methods matter because they help separate genuine persistence from wishful thinking. By repeating surveys over multiple weeks and across different microhabitats, the SCS team could estimate encounter rates and identify which parts of the forest still support the bird. The Oct to Nov timeframe also allowed them to capture any seasonal variation in behavior, such as changes in calling linked to breeding. While the sample size remains small, the structured approach gives conservation planners a baseline to work from, whether that means prioritizing certain valleys for protection or designing community-based monitoring programs that can be repeated in future years. In effect, the survey has turned scattered anecdotal reports into a coherent picture of a species that is rare but not yet gone.
From viral videos to village meetings: building public pressure
Scientific surveys alone rarely save a species, especially when the threats are rooted in land use, hunting and local economics. That is why advocates for the manumea have increasingly turned to storytelling and social media to build a constituency for the bird’s survival. Earlier this year, a short film circulated widely on platforms that specialize in art and science content, opening with the line that “They called it the ‘little dodo’ and feared it was lost forever” before revealing recent footage of the bird moving through Samoan forest. The clip, shared under the banner of a de-extinction and conservation-focused group, framed the manumea as a living test case for whether modern tools and political will can prevent another Dodo-style loss, and it invited viewers to support on-the-ground work in Samoa’s forests.
At the same time, local organizations have been working at a much more granular level, holding village meetings, school visits and community workshops to explain why the manumea matters and how everyday choices affect its chances. In Uafato, where The Manumea was sighted again according to Isaac Rounds, conservation groups have used that news as a rallying point, reminding residents that their forest is one of the last places where the national bird still lives. By pairing the global reach of viral “little dodo” narratives with the grounded reality of village-level engagement, advocates hope to create both international pressure and local pride, a combination that has proven effective in other island conservation efforts.
What it will take to keep the “little dodo” from repeating history
The rediscovery of the manumea in a remote Samoan rainforest does not mean the species is safe. If anything, the description of the bird as “potentially signalling its impending extinction” in recent analyses underscores how narrow the margin has become. Habitat loss from logging and agricultural expansion continues to chip away at the lowland and mid-elevation forests the bird prefers, while hunting pressure and introduced predators add further strain. The fact that the SCS survey recorded only five sightings over nearly a month of intensive effort suggests that the population is already at a level where random events, from cyclones to disease outbreaks, could have outsized impacts on its survival in the South Pacific.
Preventing the manumea from following the Dodo will require a mix of immediate protections and longer-term shifts. On the immediate side, that means securing key forest tracts like Uafato and the newly surveyed strongholds from further clearing, tightening hunting regulations and investing in predator control where rats and other invasive species threaten nests. Over the longer term, it will mean embedding the bird’s value into national planning, from tourism branding that highlights Samoa’s unique wildlife to education curricula that treat the manumea as a living emblem of resilience. The latest sightings prove that the “little dodo” is still here. Whether it remains part of Samoa’s future, rather than a cautionary tale told alongside the Dodo, now depends on how quickly those findings translate into action.
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