Owner Comments:
This coin depicts one of the most formidable and powerful of all modern dinosaurs, the Marabou Stork, species name Leptoptilos crumenifer.
When I first bought this coin, I thought the stork on the coin actually looked cute. I was wrong, oh so very wrong. The Marabou Stork is not cute. Rather, it is a mind-numbing horror of a dinosaur with a height of 5 feet, a 12 foot wingspan, a maximum weight of up to 20 pounds and a head like a spear. They are black and white in coloration with a bald, pink head. There is no sexual dimorphism among Marabous. Both sexes look exactly the same and one would have to watch their breeding behavior or genetically test them to determine gender. Their heads are bald because they are frequently covered in blood, entrails and other pieces of animals. Adding to its intimidation factor, it is extremely ill tempered and quick to attack. While it is often viewed as a scavenger, the Marabou Stork is also a highly efficient and extremely vicious predator. Marabou Storks will destroy and consume any animal that they can overpower and impale with their spear-like beak, from other birds to crocodile hatchlings and juveniles and anything made of meat in between. They have even been noted killing and eating full grown pelicans and flamingos.
And onto Marabous raising young....These modern dinosaurs live up to all of the terror inducing power of their ancestors when raising young. As parents, they move from ill-tempered to a level of extreme aggression bordering on emotional and psychological disturbance. If a Marabou Stork parent thinks you are a threat to its young, it will do its very best to destroy you. And with its size and that huge, razor sharp beak, it can make a very good attempt. These guys can actually kill you if you threaten them or their young. Do not doubt this. Marabou Storks are one of the most dangerous living dinosaurs. A Marabou Stork can fight off, seriously injure or kill most animals in its ecosystem, really only having to fear full grown Nile Crocodiles and Hippopotami. They can be fought off by Shoebills, another large and powerful modern dinosaur that rightly views Marabous as a threat. Typically, these fights between Shoebills and Marabous end without injury to either combatant as Marabous are, for some reason, fairly quick to retreat from an encounter with a Shoebill. Adding to the already nightmarish Marabou scenario is the fact that though Marabou Storks are monogamous animals that keep the same mate for their whole lives, they nest communally and they protect their young the same way. If you want to have the Jurassic Park experience, go mess with a baby Marabou Stork. You'll have a pack of very large, angry and violent modern theropods running after you with murderous intent in no time. Marabou Storks can live for between 25 and 41 years.
Adding to the horror is what Marabou Storks do to the nests of other modern dinosaurs. They will fly up into trees as a group and just destroy whole nesting colonies, first killing and ingesting the parents before moving on to devour all of the nestlings and eggs. I saw a video of this recently and it was honestly the first time I saw an animal exhibit a natural behavior that disturbed me.
Marabou Storks are one of the modern dinosaurs that have actually benefitted from human habitation and have evolved behaviors to take advantage of these benefits. Marabou Storks heavily colonize human landfills all across the African continent, eating all sorts of putrid refuse. They also walk through towns and villages, looking for garbage, vermin and any house pets unlucky enough to get in their way. There have been cases of people feeding Marabous. This is extremely stupid to do. If a Marabou Stork comes to associate a person with food and that person doesn't have any, the stork will likely attack them. This is definitely a modern dinosaur that needs to be experienced and respected from a safe distance.
While the Marabou Stork is nothing short of a living, walking and flying Mesozoic nightmare, it is also a vital member of its ecosystem. Nicknamed the Undertaker Stork due to its scavenging and killing habits, Marabous clean up many carcasses across the African wilderness. Marabou Storks, with their large size and immense strength, can often open carcasses that other scavengers cannot, so these ghoulish storks which deal out so much death and destruction also provide opportunities for life for other scavengers. However, these other scavengers have to wait until the Marabous are done feeding to reap this benefit if they don't want to end up as a part of the Marabou's dinner along with the carrion.
The Marabou Stork has also found its way into the lore of many African cultures, typically as either a harbinger of death or, in many cases, the embodiment of death itself. In some of these cultures, a Marabou Stork, in the role of the embodiment of death, is the final judge of a deceased person's actions and life and decides the fate of their essence or soul. It's interesting to contemplate that in some cultures, the Marabou's relative the White Stork is the bringer of new life in the form of infants while the Marabou ends life and is the final judge of the deceased. In a way, these mythical roles taken by these two storks mirror nature itself, with life and death being parts of the same family and cycle.
In closing, I think a small handicraft I saw online sums up this formidable theropod best.......this stork doesn't deliver babies. It delivers nightmares. Horrible, scarring nightmares.