Green Ibis

About the Green Ibis

The green ibis (Mesembrinibis cayennensis), also known as the Cayenne ibis, is a wading bird in the ibis family Threskiornithidae. It is the only member of the genus Mesembrinibis. This is a resident breeder from Honduras through Nicaragua, Costa Rica and western Panama, and South America to northern Argentina. It undertakes some local seasonal movements in the dry season.

The green ibis was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it in the genus Tantalus and coined the binomial name Tantalus cayennensis. Gmelin based his description on the "Cayenne ibis" that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his book A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham had based his own description on the "Le Courlis des Bois " and the "Courly vert, de Cayenne" that the French polymath, the Comte de Buffon had included in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The green ibis is now the only species placed in the genus Mesembrinibis that was introduced in 1930 by James Lee Peters. The genus name Mesembrinibis is a combination of the Greek word mesēmbrinos... Wikipedia →