Storm's stork
| Storm's stork | |
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| At San Diego Zoo | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Ciconiiformes |
| Family: | Ciconiidae |
| Genus: | Ciconia |
| Species: | C. stormi |
| Binomial name | |
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Ciconia stormi (Blasius, 1896) |
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| Extant resident range | |
The Storm's stork (Ciconia stormi) is a medium-sized stork species that occurs primarily in lowland tropical forests of Indonesia, Malaysia and southern Thailand. It is considered to be the rarest of all storks, and is estimated to number less than 500 wild individuals throughout its geographic range. The population has long been in decline and the primary cause is widely considered to be deforestation of its native habitat.
This stork was first described by Blasius in 1896, and named after the German sea captain Hugo Storm, a collector of zoological specimens in the West Indies. In Thailand, it is known as "nok kra su um", which refers to the birds’ fishing procedure by stalking along the bank of a stream in dense forest.
This species is very similar and closely related to the woolly-necked stork whose range partially overlaps with that of the Storm's Stork. Although the Storm's stork has long been considered a separate species, it has also been previously treated as a subspecies of the woolly-necked stork in the more recent past. However, Storm's stork is characterised by a yellowish-orange facial skin patch around the eye that is absent in the woolly-necked stork; and the neck is black and white, whereas it is completely white in the woolly-necked stork. However, the specific distinguishing features of Storm's stork have been poorly known in the past, which in the field has frequently led to confusion with the woolly-necked stork.
These two species are also ecologically segregated, with the Storm's stork keeping to dense forests and the woolly-necked stork mainly inhabiting open swamp, rice paddy, grassland and dry cultivated areas. There is evidence of sympatry of these two species in Sumatra, where both of these habitats are present. Further, phylogenetic analyses of the Ciconiidae based on a portion of b gene have suggested with strong support that the Storm's stork and the woolly-necked stork are sister species.
This medium-sized stork stands at 75–91 cm tall and most of the plumage is black. The undertail coverts and the back of neck are white with a black cap. It has orange facial skin with a yellow ring surrounding the eye, a red iris, and a pinkish-red bill. On some but not all male individuals, the culmen of the bill is slightly concave with a basal knob.
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Wikipedia