Plegadis falcinellus
The glossy ibis is a water bird in the order Pelecaniformes and the ibis and spoonbill family Threskiornithidae. The scientific name derives from Ancient Greek plegados and Latin, falcis, both meaning "sickle" and referring to the distinctive shape of the bill.

Chuck Homler, Focus On Wildlife · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- glossy ibisPBDB
- Sits inside
- PlegadisPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Threskiornithidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Threskiornithidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Threskiornithidae
- Mass
- 633 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 117 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 129 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 774 ka to 0 Mya.
6 occurrences of Plegadis falcinellus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
6 occurrences- Pleistocene65%
- Holocene35%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Plegadis falcinellus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Plegadis falcinellus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
119 taxa- Anas platyrhynchos3 sites
- Aythya fuligula2 sites
- Aythya nyroca2 sites
- Corvus2 sites
- Fulica cristata2 sites
- Oena capensis2 sites
- Pica pica2 sites
- Scolopax rusticola2 sites
- Turdus pilaris2 sites
- Accipiter henstii1 site
- Accipiter nisus1 site
- Accipitridae1 site
- Alaudidae1 site
- Alopochen sirabensis1 site
- Anas1 site
- Anas crecca1 site
- Anatidae1 site
- Anatinae1 site
- Apus balstoni1 site
- Ardea cinerea1 site
- Ardea humbloti1 site
- Arvicola1 site
- Athene superciliaris1 site
- Aythya ferina1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Plegadis falcinellus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
6 references- Subfossil birds from a submerged cave in southwestern Madagascar1
- The ornithological remains from Marathousa 1 (Middle Pleistocene; Megalopolis Basin, Greece)1
- A new Middle Pleistocene bird assemblage from Cava di Breccia di Casal Selce (Ponte Galeria, Rome, Italy)1
- Bird remains from Curata and Bordu Mare caves (Romania)1
- Pleistocene bird fauna from Bir Tarfawi (Egyptian western desert)1
- Bird remains from the West Indies1
Each of the 6 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content3
Picture of Plegadis falcinellus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Chuck Homler, Focus On Wildlife
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- NMNH - Division of Birds
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Plegadis falcinellus · usnm:birds:226870
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- GigaScience
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Glossy ibis”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itPlegadis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1766)