''Eudocimus'' is a genus of

ibis The ibises () (collective plural ibis; classical plurals ibides and ibes) are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae, that inhabit wetlands, forests and plains. "Ibis" derives from the Latin and Ancient Greek word f ...

es,

wading bird 245px, A flock of Dunlins and Red knots">Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflat ...

s of the family

Threskiornithidae The family Threskiornithidae includes 36 species of large wading birds. The family has been traditionally classified into two subfamilies, the ibises and the spoonbills; however recent genetic studies have cast doubt on this arrangement, and hav ...

. They occur in the warmer parts of the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...

with representatives from the southern United States south through

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

, the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

, and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

Taxonomy and Systematics

The genus ''Eudocimus'' appears to be most closely related to (but more primitive than) ''

Plegadis ''Plegadis'' is a bird genus in the family Threskiornithidae. The genus name derives from Ancient Greek ''plegados'', "sickle", referring to the distinctive shape of the bill. Member species are found on every continent except Antarctica as well ...

'', the latter distinguished anatomically by the conformation of the

tarsometatarsus The tarsometatarsus is a bone that is only found in the lower leg of birds and some non-avian dinosaurs. It is formed from the fusion of several bones found in other types of animals, and homologous to the mammalian tarsus (ankle bones) and meta ...

. The fossil record is poor, but the Early

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

fossil species ''

Plegadis paganus ''Gerandibis'' is an extinct genus of ibis known from fossil remains from early Miocene (Aquitanian) beds in France. It contains a single species, ''Gerandibis pagana'', which was originally described by Milne-Edwards in 1868 as ''Ibis pagana''. ...

'' has some intermediate features. It has two foramina in the intertrochlear groove of its distal tarsometatarsus, as do ''Plegadis'' in contrast to the single foramen of ''Eudocimus'' and many other bird species. The derived nature of this species indicates ibises belonging to ''Eudocimus'' were already in existence at this time. A 2010 study of

mitochondrial DNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial D ...

of the spoonbills by Chesser and colleagues, which included ''E. ruber'', '' Nipponia nippon'' and ''

Threskiornis aethiopicus The African sacred ibis (''Threskiornis aethiopicus'') is a species of ibis, a wading bird of the family Threskiornithidae. It is native to much of Africa, as well as small parts of Iraq, Iran and Kuwait. It is especially known for its role in ...

'' found that ''E. ruber'' was an early offshoot and not closely related to a clade containing the spoonbills and Old World ibises. Remains similar to ''E. albus'' have been found in Middle

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Eudocimus peruvianus ''Eudocimus'' is a genus of ibises, wading birds of the family Threskiornithidae. They occur in the warmer parts of the New World with representatives from the southern United States south through Central America, the West Indies, and South Amer ...

'' was described from a tarsometatarsus that differed slightly from ''E. albus'', whose remains were also found there. Remains of neither species are common in the beds. The tar seeps have been dated at 13,900 years old. The American white ibis is still found in Peru.

Species

There are just two living species in this genus, The two species hybridise, and are sometimes considered conspecific.

Description

These birds are found in marshy

wetlands A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

, often near coasts. They build stick nests in trees or bushes over water, and a typical

clutch A clutch is a mechanical device that engages and disengages power transmission, especially from a drive shaft to a driven shaft. In the simplest application, clutches connect and disconnect two rotating shafts (drive shafts or line shafts). ...

is two to five eggs. ''Eudocimus'' ibises are monogamous and colonial, often nesting in mixed colonies with other wading species. Adults are 56–61 cm long with an 85–95 cm wingspan. They have long curved bills, pink legs and bare red faces. The plumage is all-white (''albus'') or all-scarlet (''ruber''), except for the black wing-tips, which are easily visible in flight. Juveniles are largely brown with white underparts and duller bare parts. ''Eudocimus'' ibises feed by probing with their long, downcurved beaks. Their diet consists of

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely Carnivore, carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order (biology), order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-f ...

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

s and

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s. They fly with neck and legs outstretched, often in long, loose lines, especially on their way to or from the night-time roosts.

References

* ''A guide to the birds of Costa Rica'' by F Gary Stiles and Alexander F Skutch, * ''Birds of Venezuela'' by Steven L Hilty, {{Taxonbar, from=Q992312 Bird genera *