The Ephippiorhynchus is believed to be the jabiru's closest living cousin, indicating an Old World origin for the species.

[6] The proposed Late Pleistocene fossil stork genus Prociconia from Brazil might actually belong in Jabiru.

[7] In Portuguese, the bird is called tuiuiu, tuim-de-papo-vermelho ("red-necked tuim", in Mato Grosso) and cauauá (in the Amazon Basin).

For the continent, it also has the second largest wingspan, after the Andean condor (that is, excluding the great albatross occasionally found off the coast of southern South America).

The jabiru lives in large groups near rivers and ponds and eats prodigious quantities of frogs, fish, snakes, snails, insects, and other invertebrates.

[10] It will even eat fresh carrion and dead fish, such as those that die during dry spells, and thus help maintain the quality of isolated bodies of water.

When prey is contacted, the storks close their bill, draw it out of the water, and throw their head back to swallow.

In one instance, when house mice experienced a population explosion in an agricultural area, several hundred jabirus could be seen in each field feeding on the rodents (unusual for a bird that's rarely seen in large numbers anywhere).

[14] The nest of sticks is built by both parents around August–September (in the Southern Hemisphere) on tall trees, and enlarged at each succeeding season, growing to several meters in diameter.

The parents take turns incubating the clutch of two to five white eggs and are known to be more territorial than usual against other jabirus during the breeding period.