The African sacred ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus) is separate species from the Malagasy sacred ibis (Threskiornis bernieri ssp.). The Malagasy sacred ibis has two subspecies - the Madagascar (T. b. bernieri) and the Aldabra (T. b. abbotti). Before DNA sequencing, it USED TO BE that the Malagasy WAS a subspecies to the African. HOWEVER, they can be differentiated by their bill thickness and eye color; the African sacred ibis possess brown eyes with red skin around the eyes and a thick beak, whereas the Malagasy have light colored eyes (white in the Madagascar, blue in the Aldabra) with a more slender beak. In flight, the African sacred ibis has black tips on their flight feathers whereas the Malagasy do not.
From the individuals I've seen at Oakland Zoo and Santa Barbara Zoo, those individuals were the nominate Madagascar subspecies since they possess white eyes. I'm unaware of the Aldabra subspecies being kept in either North American or European collections. From a friend who was a former zookeeper, the arrival of these Malagasy sacred ibises came from Europe.
To my knowledge, the African sacred ibis is still on the TAG. I wouldn't be surprised that they are being phased out in favor of the Malagasy sacred ibis. In my observations, I haven't seen many African sacred ibises outside of San Francisco Zoo so far.
It's been my observation that the AZA does a poor job maintaining subspecies of birds. Like I pointed out before, I wonder which subspecies of hamerkop are primarily kept and I know for a fact that the white-headed buffalo-weaver are primarily the nominate subspecies, although I did recently see what I refer to as the "black mantled" subspecies in a couple of collections (with the white-headed buffalo-weaver; the nominate has a brown mantle). But that's an entirely different topic for a separate post.
Last edited: