 <unk> ' accounts from the 17th and 18th centuries described a white bird that flew with difficulty , and it was subsequently referred to as the Réunion solitaire . In the mid 19th century , the old travellers ' accounts were incorrectly assumed to refer to white relatives of the dodo , due to one account specifically mentioning dodos on the island , and because 17th @-@ century paintings of white dodos had recently surfaced . However , no fossils <unk> to dodo @-@ like birds were ever found on Réunion , and it was later questioned whether the paintings had anything to do with the island . Other identities were suggested as well , based only on speculation . In the late 20th century , the discovery of a subfossil ibis led to the idea that the old accounts actually referred to an ibis species instead . The idea that the solitaire and the subfossil ibis are identical has only met with limited dissent , and is now widely accepted . 
