Up close and personal with a dodo

I met up recently with two old friends, dodos actually. They live in the Natural History Museum, South Ken. The odd thing is that one of the two dodos exhibited there has been proven never to have existed! The Reunion dodo stares out at you, bold as brass, but he's no more real than a unicorn. Of course both of them are simply reconstructions. If you've ploughed your way through The Dodo Tree you will know that even stuffed dodos are extinct.
It's reasonable enough to still have a reconstruction of your common or garden Mauritian dodo to cheer everyone's day, but odd that the Reunion Island dodo, Raphus Solitarius, is still posing proudly, as the latest thinking is that the flightless bird on Reunion was an ibis.
Here is is, in the (non-existent) flesh.

Good to see good old Raphus Solitarius again of course. But they might give a hint he's no more real than the Phoenix of Arabia.
Here's what the Reunion Island, or white dodo (the species Marie claims to have with her on her voyage in my novel) has to say for itself:
'A close relative of the Mauritian dodo, the Reunion Island dodo is known only from personal records.This is not a real specimen, only a modelled reconstruction.'
Nice to see it there still, anyway. It's something of an old friend. After meeting it I took myself off to see if they have a Jaberwocky on display anywhere, or perhaps a Bandersnatch in the mammal display.