The Madagascar ibis (''Lophotibis cristata''), also known as the Madagascar crested ibis, white-winged ibis or crested wood ibis, is a medium-sized (approximately 50 cm long), brown- plumaged

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 ...

. It has bare red orbital skin, yellow

bill Bill(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States) * Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature * Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer * Bill, a bird or animal's beak Plac ...

, red legs, white wings and its head is partially bare with a dense crest of green or gloss blue and white plumes on the

nape The nape is the back of the neck. In technical anatomical/medical terminology, the nape is also called the nucha (from the Medieval Latin rendering of the Arabic , "spinal marrow"). The corresponding adjective is ''nuchal'', as in the term ''nu ...

. The Madagascar ibis is the only member of the genus ''Lophotibis''.

Taxonomy

The Madagascar ibis was described by the French polymath

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopédiste. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists, including two prominent ...

in 1781 in his ''Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux'' from a specimen collected on the island of Madagascar. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by

François-Nicolas Martinet François-Nicolas Martinet (1731 - 1800) was a French engineer, engraver and naturalist. Martinet engraved the plates for numerous works on natural history, especially ornithology. Notable in particular are those for ''l'Ornithologia, sive Synop ...

in the ''Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle'' which was produced under the supervision of

Edme-Louis Daubenton Edme-Louis Daubenton (12 August 1730 – 12 December 1785) was a French naturalist. Daubenton was the cousin of another French naturalist, Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton. Georges-Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Buffon engaged Edme-Louis Daubenton to su ...

to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist

Pieter Boddaert Pieter Boddaert (1730 – 6 May 1795) was a Dutch physician and naturalist. Early life, family and education Boddaert was the son of a Middelburg jurist and poet by the same name (1694–1760). The younger Pieter obtained his M.D. at the Univers ...

coined the binomial name ''Tantalus cristatus'' in his catalogue of the ''Planches Enluminées''. The Madagascar ibis is now the only species placed in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

''Lophotibis'' that was erected by the German naturalist Ludwig Reichenbach in 1853. The name of the genus combines the Ancient Greek ''lophos'' meaning "crest" and ''ibis''; the specific epithet ''cristata'' is from the Latin ''crustatus'' meaning "crest".

Description

The Madagascar ibis, with a length of , is among the largest birds in the Madagascar forest. The head is black and the upper parts are rufous brown. The chin, neck and throat and underparts are dark brown and the wing largely white. Part of the face is naked and red, including round the eye, and the crown and back of the neck bear a crest of long feathers which are black with a metallic sheen. In the subspecies ''L. c. cristata'', the sheen is green and there are flecks of white; in the subspecies ''L. c. urschi'', the throat, neck and crest have a greenish sheen mixed with yellowish-orange, and the body colour is darker chestnut. The iris is brown, the very long beak is horn-coloured and the legs and feet are red.

Distribution and habitat

The Madagascar ibis is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

to the

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (se ...

s and

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s of

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

at altitudes of up to . It is found in both primary and secondary forest, including humid forest in the northeast of the island and dry forests in the west and south.

Ecology

Its diet consists mainly of

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 ...

spider Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

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

s, reptiles,

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class G ...

s and

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s. The female usually lays three

eggs Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ...

in a platform nest made from twigs and branches.

Status

The total population of this ibis is thought to be declining due to ongoing habitat loss, and overhunting in some areas, it being a favourite quarry. The bird is evaluated as being a near-threatened species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

References

External links

BirdLife species factsheet
{{Taxonbar, from=Q477691 Madagascar ibis Endemic birds of Madagascar Madagascar ibis