[2] The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text.

[3] Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Tantalus cristatus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées.

[4] The Madagascar ibis is now the only species placed in the genus Lophotibis that was erected by the German naturalist Ludwig Reichenbach in 1853.

Part of the face is naked and red, including round the eye, and the crown and back of the neck bear a crest of long feathers which are black with a metallic sheen.

[9] The total population of this ibis is thought to be declining due to ongoing habitat loss, and overhunting in some areas, it being a favourite quarry.