Travellers ' 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 was 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 referable to dodo @-@ like birds was ever found on Réunion , and it was later questioned whether the paintings had anything to do with the island . Other identities was 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 have only met with limited dissent , and is now widely accepted .