 The American white ibis was one of the many bird species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in the 1758 10th edition of his Systema Naturae , where it was given the binomial name of <unk> albus . The species name is the Latin adjective albus " white " . Alternative common names that have been used include Spanish curlew and white curlew . English naturalist Mark Catesby mistook immature birds for a separate species , which he called the brown curlew . Local creole names in Louisiana include bec <unk> and petit <unk> . 
