uncommon for the stork but does occur. Feeding behavior Nestlings feeding behavior The nestlings of the African openbill stork never voluntarily eat anything else than molluscs. Even when extremely hungry, the nestlings will not ingest other types of meat unless being force-fed. The nestlings have been observed as unaware of how to consume fish. When presented with them, the young African openbill would try to swallow them sideways or backwards as it is not instinctive to them how to consume those food items. The young feed in the nest through regurgitation from the parents. When eating, the nestlings bring their wings over their head in an attempt to protect their food from being stolen by competing nest mates. In nestlings, the sides of the lower mandible are flexible, and the gular skin is loose and elastic which allows them to swallow large pieces of food relative to their size. The esophagus is expandible and permits storage of food. The nestlings can ingest large quantities of food when available which allows them to survive relatively long periods of time with no food intake. Adult feeding behavior The adults either feed alone or in large group. If a colony has found a successful foraging area, they often return to it and piles of snail shells can be seen accumulating on the shores. During nesting season, the African openbill adults will bring the food items back to their nest and these large piles of shells can be seen accumulating under the colony’s tree. Opening of mollusks Once the storks capture a mollusc, they carry their prey to shore for extraction and consumption of the meat. The African openbill are well known for removing the meat of the molluscs without breaking their fragile shells. Snails Most of this procedure is done underwater or hidden in vegetation, therefore there is still a lot of unknowns surrounding how exactly the African Openbill removes the meat from the snail shells. Scientists know that the storks often submerge their head in the water while working on the shells and that they vigorously shake their heads up and down while doing so. This vigorous motion of the head led many scientists to incorrectly conclude the storks were crushing shells. Freshly discarded shells have been collected in multiple studies and have always been found whole, therefore discrediting the hypothesis of the storks breaking the shells to obtain the mollusc meat.