Black Stork - Taxonomy and Etymology

Taxonomy and Etymology

The stork family contains several genera in three major groups: the open-billed and wood storks (Mycteria and Anastomus), the giant storks (Ephippiorhynchus, Jabiru and Leptoptilos), and the "typical storks", Ciconia. The typical storks include the White Stork and six other extant species, which are characterised by straight bills and mainly black and white plumage. Within the genus Ciconia, the Black Stork's closest relatives are the other European species, the White Stork and its former subspecies, the black-billed Oriental White Stork of east Asia. The Black Stork was found to be basal in analysis of mitochondrial cytochrome b DNA by Beth Slikas in 1997. Fossil remains have been recovered from Miocene beds Rusinga and Maboko Islands in Kenya, which are indistinguishable from the White and Black Storks.

The Black Stork was one of the many species originally described by Linnaeus in the landmark 1758 10th edition of his Systema Naturae, where it was given the binomial name of Ardea nigra. It was moved to the new genus Ciconia by French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson two years later. Both the genus and the specific names are Latin; Ciconia is "stork" and nigra is "black". The word stork is derived from the Old English word storc, thought to be related to the Old High German storah, meaning "stork", and the Old English stearc, meaning "stiff".