both quoting much earlier but now lost authors, the sacred ibis procreates with its bill, and thus the bird is always a virgin. Aristotle, writing some 500 years earlier, also mentions this theory, but repudiates it. Picrius mentions how the venomous basilisk is hatched from the eggs of ibis, nurtured from the poisons of all the serpents the birds devour. These authors and many others also mention how crocodiles and snakes are rendered motionless after being touched by the feather of an ibis. Claudius Aelianus also says the ibis is consecrated to the moon. Pliny and Galen ascribe the invention of the clyster (enema) to the ibis, as according to them it gave such treatments to hippopotami. Plutarch assures us it uses only salt water for this purpose. 1600 years later this was still accepted science, as Claude Perrault, in his anatomical descriptions of the bird, claimed to have found a hole in the bill which the bird used for that purpose. In the century before the time of Christ and for at least a century after, the worship of Isis had become quite popular in Rome, especially among women, and the ibis had become one of her associated symbols. A number of frescoes and mosaics in the patrician villas of Pompeii and Herculaneum of 50BC-79AD show these birds. According to some translations of the septuagint, the ibis is one of the unclean birds which may not be eaten (Leviticus 11:17, Deuteronomy 14:16). References External links Sacred Ibis—The Atlas of Southern African Birds'' Invasive Species Factsheet African sacred ibis on DAISIE European Invasive Alien Species Gateway Articles containing video clips African sacred ibis Birds in religion African sacred ibis African sacred ibis Birds of the Middle East Threskiornis Taxa named by John Latham (ornithologist)