Extant species The genus contains eight extant species: }} }}
Fossils The
fossil record of the genus is extensive, indicating that
Ciconia storks were once more widespread than they are today. Although the known material tends to suggest that the genus evolved around the
Atlantic, possibly in
western Europe or
Africa, the comparative lack of
fossil sites in
Asia makes this assumption not well-founded presently. All that can be said is that by the Early
Pliocene,
Ciconia was widespread at least all over the
Northern Hemisphere. Fossil members of the genus include: •
Ciconia louisebolesae (Early Miocene of Riversleigh,
Australia) • ?
Ciconia minor (Early Miocene of Rusinga Island,
Kenya) • ?
Ciconia sarmatica (Late Miocene of Credinţa,
Romania) • ?
Ciconia gaudryi (Late Miocene/Early Pliocene of Pikermi,
Greece) •
Ciconia sp. 1 (Late Miocene/Early Pliocene of Lee Creek Mine,
the United States) •
Ciconia sp. 2 (Late Miocene/Early Pliocene of Lee Creek Mine,
the United States) • ?
Ciconia kahli (Early Pliocene of
South Africa) •
Ciconia lucida (Mongolian stork), (Middle Pliocene of
Mongolia) •
Ciconia maltha (asphalt stork or
La Brea stork), (Late Pliocene – Late Pleistocene of the western and
southern United States,
Cuba, and
Bolivia) •
Ciconia stehlini (Late Pliocene – Early Pleistocene of
Hungary) – may belong to extant species •
Ciconia nana (Australian stork) – (Early to Middle Pliocene, Late Pleistocene of
Australia) – formerly
Xenorhynchus •
Ciconia sp. (Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene of
Las Breas de San Felipe,
Cuba) A
distal radius in
Late Pleistocene deposits of
San Josecito Cavern (
Mexico) may belong in this genus or in
Mycteria; it is smaller than that of any known American stork,
Ciconia or otherwise. The proposed fossil genus
Prociconia from
Brazil, also of Late Pleistocene age, may be a
junior synonym of either this genus or
Jabiru. A distal
tarsometatarsus found in a
rock shelter on
Réunion was probably of a bird taken there as food by early settlers; no known account mentions the presence of storks on the
Mascarenes, and while this
subfossil was initially believed to be from a stork, it is today assigned to the
Réunion ibis (
Threskiornis solitarius) which is quite similar to storks osteologically and was not yet described when the bone was discovered (Cowles, 1994). ==References ==