Saw this at the Bronx Zoo yesterday, in World of Birds in an exhibit with Hyacinth Macaws, Amazons, and Great Blue Turaco. It was unsigned. Is it a Black-faced Ibis or Buff-necked Ibis?
@SaritaWolf Good Point! I think all three of the species in this genus - Black-faced, Buff-necked, and Andean are extremely difficult to tell apart and the photo on the Zoo Institutes site could be either a Buff-necked or a Black-faced because they are both so similar looking to me. The website for every U.S. Zoo that I've seen that has a Theristicus ibis, identifies their ibis as Black-faced Ibis (Jacksonville, Omaha, Houston), so I honestly haven't tried very hard to verify these identifications.
The animal on Zoo Institutes does not look like a buff-necked ibis to me. I think it is misidentified. Aside from that, Zootierliste lists no buff-necked ibis in Bronx Zoo (or North America), while it does say black-faced ibis are present there.
Zoo Institutes also makes mistakes. This is a black-faced ibis, it has a small lobe under the chin and you can just see the grey shoulder/breast stripe and the wings are clearly not whitish.
@lintworm Thank you for that background information and the link to the IbisRing.org site and the excellent article regarding identification! I wasn't aware of that website or the history of Black-faced Ibis in European collections (or in the U.S for that matter). I somewhat assume that all or most of the Black-faced Ibis in North American zoos may have come from captive bred birds from Europe because the population here is still very small and present in ten or fewer zoos. I'm not sure of this, but I believe that the Andean Ibis might be a recent taxonomic/genetic split from either the Buff-necked or the Black-faced. Thank you again for sending the link to this article! I think this a fascinating genus of ibis and I hope to see their captive population expand on both sides of the Atlantic!
