Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Réunion Flightless Ibis Scientific Classification Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Ciconiiformes Family: Threskiornithidae Genus: Threskiornis Species: solitarius Binomial name Threskiornis solitarius The Réunion Flightless Ibis (Threskiornis solitarius) is an extinct bird species which was native to the island of Réunion. It is probably the same bird discovered by Portuguese sailors there in 1613 and assumed by biologists of the time to be a member of the solitaire family, who called it the "Réunion Solitaire" (Raphus solitarius) and classified it as a relative of the dodo. That bird was at various times classified as Victoriornis imperialis and Borbonibis latipes. Threskiornis solitarius was given its present nomenclature by Baron Edmund de Sélys-Longchamps in 1848, but the species' existence was not confirmed until the discovery of bones on Réunion in the late twentieth century. The last account of the "Réunion Solitaire" was recorded in 1705, indicating that the species probably became extinct sometime early in that century. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.