[2] Storks dwell in many regions and tend to live in drier habitats than the closely related herons, spoonbills and ibises; they also lack the powder down that those groups use to clean off fish slime.

Ottomar Anschütz's famous 1884 album of photographs of storks inspired the design of Otto Lilienthal's experimental gliders of the late nineteenth century.

[4] Popular conceptions of storks' fidelity, serial monogamy, and doting parental care contribute to their prominence in mythology and culture, especially in western folklore as the deliverers of newborn humans.

However, the assessment for several species were based on incorrect assumptions and a general absence of sound information on stork habits.

[7][8] The name refers to the rigid posture of storks, a meaning reflected in the related word stark, which is derived from the Old English "stearc".

For the fossil record of living genera, documented since the Middle Miocene (about 15 mya) at least in some cases, see the genus articles.

Larger still are the massive daggers of the two adjutants and marabou (Leptoptilos), which are used to feed on carrion and in defense against other scavengers, as well as for taking other prey.

[23] The long, ibis-like downcurved bills of the Mycteria storks have sensitive tips that allow them to detect prey by touch (tactilocation) where cloudy conditions would not allow them to see it.

[23][28] The syrinxes of storks are "variably degenerate" however,[27] and the syringeal membranes of some species are found between tracheal rings or cartilage, an unusual arrangement shared with the ovenbirds.

[23] Storks are more diverse and common in the tropics, and the species that live in temperate climates for the most part migrate to avoid the worst of winter.

Preferred habitats include flooded grasslands, light woodland, marshes and paddyfields, wet meadows, river backwaters and ponds.

[31][32][33][34] In South Africa, the woolly-necked storks have adapted to artificial feeding and now largely nest on trees in gardens with swimming pools.

The routes taken by these species have developed to avoid long distance travel across water, and from Europe this usually means flying across the Straits of Gibraltar or east across the Bosphorus and through Israel and the Sinai.

[23] Studies of young birds denied the chance to travel with others of their species have shown that these routes are at least partially learnt, rather than being innate as they are in passerine migrants.

[42] Many species that are not regular migrants will still make smaller movements if circumstances require it; others may migrate over part of their range.

Mycteria storks are specialists in feeding on aquatic vertebrates, particularly when prey is concentrated by lowering water levels or flooding into shallows.

On marine mudflats and mangrove swamps in Sumatra, milky storks feed on mudskippers, probing the burrow with the bill and even the whole head into the mud.

When contact is made with prey the bill reflexively snaps shut in 25 milliseconds, one of the fastest reactions known in any vertebrate.

[23] Storks use trees in a variety of habitats to breed including forests, cities, farmlands, and large wetlands.

The 3rd century Roman writer Aelian, citing the authority of Alexander of Myndus, noted in his De natura animalium (book 3, chapter 23) that aged storks flew away to oceanic islands where they were transformed into humans as a reward for their piety towards their parents.

[52] Storks were also thought to care for their aged parents, feeding them and even transporting them, and children's books depicted them as a model of filial values.

The first fable involves a stork who is caught with a group of cranes who are eating grain in a farmer's field, with the moral that those who associate with wicked people can be held accountable for their crimes.

[61] In Slavic mythology and pagan religion, storks were thought to carry unborn souls from Vyraj to Earth in spring and summer.

[62] This belief still persists in the modern folk culture of many Slavic countries, in the simplified child story that "storks bring children into the world".

[63][64] Famous is the role that the fable played in historical development of psychoanalysis: the name ‘chimney sweeping’, which the first of all patients gave to her talking cure, is a free association with the place through which the bird used to bring babies into house.

Psychoanalyst Marvin Margolis suggests the enduring nature of the stork fable of the newborn is linked to its addressing a psychological need, in that it allays the discomfort of discussing sex and procreation with children.

Birds have long been associated with the maternal symbols from pagan goddesses such as Juno, to the Holy Ghost, and the stork may have been chosen for its white plumage (depicting purity), size, and flight at high altitude (likened to flying between Earth and Heaven).