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Concept
Black-necked stork
Summary
The black-necked stork (Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus) is a tall long-necked wading bird in the stork family. It is a resident species across the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia with a disjunct population in Australia. It lives in wetland habitats and near fields of certain crops such as rice and wheat where it forages for a wide range of animal prey. Adult birds of both sexes have a heavy bill and are patterned in white and irridescent blacks, but the sexes differ in the colour of the iris with females sporting yellow irises and males having dark-coloured irises. In Australia, it is sometimes called a jabiru although that name refers to a stork species found in the Americas. It is one of the few storks that are strongly territorial when feeding and breeding.
First described by John Latham as Mycteria asiatica, this species was later placed in the genus Xenorhynchus based on morphology. Based on behavioural similarities, Kahl suggested the placement of the species in the genus Ephippiorhynchus, which then included a single species, the saddle-billed stork. This placement of both the black-necked stork and saddle-billed stork in the same genus was later supported by osteological and behavioural data, and DNA-DNA hybridisation and cytochrome–b data. The genera Xenorhynchus and Ephippiorhynchus were both erected at the same time, and as first revisor, Kahl selected the latter as the valid genus for the two species. This and the saddle-billed stork Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis are the only stork species that show marked sexual dimorphism in iris colour.
Two subspecies are recognized E. a. asiaticus of the Oriental region and E. a. australis of south New Guinea and Australia. Charles Lucien Bonaparte erected the genus Xenorhynchus in 1855 and placed two species in it, X. indica and X. australis. This treatment was carried on into later works. James Lee Peters in his 1931 work treated them as subspecies. In 1989, McAllan and Bruce again suggested the elevation of the two subspecies into two species: E.
Official source
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