Leptoptilos is a genus of very large tropical storks, commonly known as adjutants. The name means thin (lepto) feather (ptilos). Two species are resident breeders in southern Asia, and the marabou stork is found in Sub-Saharan Africa. These are huge birds, typically 110–150 cm tall with a 210–250 cm wingspan. The three species each have a black upper body and wings, and white belly and undertail. The head and neck are bare like those of a vulture. The huge bill is long and thick. Juveniles are a duller, browner version of the adult. Leptoptilos storks are gregarious colonial breeders in wetlands, building large stick nests in trees. They feed on frogs, insects, young birds, lizards and rodents. They are frequent scavengers, and the naked head and neck are adaptations to this, as are those of the vultures with which they often feed. A feathered head would become rapidly clotted with blood and other substances when a scavenging bird's head was inside a large corpse, and the bare head is easier to keep clean. Most storks fly with neck outstretched, but the three Leptoptilos storks retract their necks in flight like a heron.

Taxonomy and species

The genus Leptoptilos was introduced in 1831 by the French naturalist René Lesson. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek leptos meaning "delicate" or "slender" with ptilon meaning "feather". The type species was subsequently designated as the greater adjutant by George Robert Gray. The genus contains three extant species.

Fossils

There is an ample fossil record of this genus. Many fossils members of the genus were much larger than living species, standing as tall as a man, with the earliest being Leptoptilos falconeri from the Pliocene of Afro-Eurasia. Giant Leptoptilos storks survived into the Late Pleistocene on the Southeast Asian islands of Java (L. titan) and Flores (L. robustus). †Leptoptilos siwalicensis from the Siwalik deposits (Late Miocene? to Late Pliocene) may belong to this genus or to a closely related one (Louchart et al. 2005).

In culture

The adjutant bird features in the arms of Baron Sinha. In the satirical French puppet show Le Bébête Show, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was, for a time, depicted as a Leptoptilos.