Birds Guide

A drawing of a dodo from c. 1880, which belonged to the Raphidae family.

The Raphidae is a family of extinct flightless birds, part of the order Columbiformes, comprising the genera Pezophaps and Raphus. The former comprised the species Pezophaps solitaria (the Rodrigues Solitaire); the latter Raphus cucullatus (the Dodo). Recent genetic evidence tends to support the submergence of the family within the Columbidae.

Both were native to the Mascarene Islands, Indian Ocean, and become extinct through human hunting and predation by introduced non-native predators following Western colonisation in the 1600s.

The Réunion Sacred Ibis, until recently considered a third extinct member of the Raphidae, has now been reclassified as belonging to the order Ciconiiformes.