Scarlet Ibis 

This article is about the bird. For the short story, see The Scarlet Ibis.
Scarlet Ibis

Conservation status

Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Ciconiiformes
Family: Threskiornithidae
Subfamily: Threskionithinae
Genus: Eudocimus
Species: E. ruber
Binomial name
Eudocimus ruber
Linnaeus, 1758
Range
Range

The Scarlet Ibis (Eudocimus ruber) is a species of ibis that inhabits tropical South America and also Trinidad and Tobago. It is the national bird of Trinidad and is featured on the Trinidad and Tobago coat of arms along with Tobago's national bird Rufous-vented Chachalaca.

Adults are 56-61 cm long and weigh 650g. They are completely scarlet, except for black wing-tips. They nest in trees, laying two to four eggs. Their diet includes crustaceans and similar small marine animals. A juvenile Scarlet Ibis is grey/white in colour; as it grows the ingestion of red crabs in the tropical swamps gradually produces the characteristic scarlet plumage.

Life span of Scarlet Ibis is approximately 15 years in the wild and 20 years in captivity.

This species is very closely related to the American White Ibis and is sometimes considered conspecific with it.

While the species may have occurred as a natural vagrant in southern Florida in the late 1800s, all recent reports of the species in North America have been of introduced or escaped birds. Eggs from Trinidad were placed in White Ibis nests in Hialeah Park in 1962, and the resulting population hybridised with the native ibis, producing "pink ibis" that are still occasionally seen.


References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Eudocimus ruber

Scarlet Ibis Eudocimus ruber

Scarlet Ibis

Scarlet Ibis at SeaWorld, California

At Bronx zoo, NY

young scarlet ibis

At the National Aviary