Asian Openbill Stork

About the Asian Openbill Stork

The Asian openbill or Asian openbill stork (Anastomus oscitans) is a large wading bird in the stork family Ciconiidae. This distinctive stork is found mainly in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It is greyish or white with glossy black wings and tail. Adults have a gap between the arched upper mandible and recurved lower mandible which is thought to be an adaptation that aids in the handling of snails, their main prey. Young birds are born without this gap. Although resident within their range, they make long distance movements in response to weather and food availability.

The Asian openbill was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected in Pondichery, India. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Ardea oscitans in... Wikipedia →