By Janet Brooks
As noted by Hunink (8,6) Herodotus was the first author known to have described the phenomenon of avian activity cleaning leeches from the jaws of crocodiles. Whether Apuleius learned of the tale from reading Herodotus directly is unknown. Aristotle and Cicero also described this. Hunink. Fascination with bird and crocodile did not wane through the centuries. An historical review of the tale was the first issue zoologist Thomas R. Howell took up in his monograph Breeding Biology of the Egyptian Plover, Pluvianus Aegyptius, University of California Publications in Zoology, vol. 113, 1979[i]:
“Herodotus, Bk. 2, ch. 68, who visited Egypt in 459 BC wrote of a bird called the Trochilos which entered the gaping mouths of basking crocodiles and picked leech-like parasites from the inside of their jaws. This story has been repeated and sometimes embellished by many later authors, both classical and modern. In the later versions, the bird has also been alleged to pick food particles from between the teeth. The fascination of Herodotus’s account has endured. John Gould made a geographic exception in his ‘Birds of Asia’ (1886, reprinted 1969) to include an artist’s conception of EP’s [the Egyptian Plover] servicing the jaws of a gaping crocodile along the Nile, and even contemporary poets and novelists have used the tale to evoke an African atmosphere.”
(Internal citations omitted.) Id., 3-4. Howell continues to enumerate the biologists in the 19th and 20th centuries who have sought to determine whether the tale is true and if so, which bird Herodotus meant, as he described only the avian behavior, not its appearance. Howell concludes believing that Egyptian Plovers “probably sometimes pick food from jaws and teeth of crocodiles” and “may have been more frequent and widespread in earlier times when both crocodiles and EPs were more common all along the Nile.” Id., 5. Alas, in his observations of the bird over a two and a half month period, he never saw this behavior.
Continuing fascination led the commercial photography company, Warren Photographic, to create and post online a “digital reconstruction of popular myth attributed to Herodotus, 5th Century BC. Africa.” https://www.warrenphotographic.co.uk/00955-nile-crocodile-with-egyptian-plover. But as can occur when photographs travel through the cybersphere, the photograph lost its “digital reconstruction” qualification and has been posted by a science and wildlife organization as representing an actual relationship between the animals. https://smallscience.hbcse.tifr.res.in/crocodile-and-the-plover-bird/. (Retrieved 12/2/2022.)
Adam Britton, an Australian zoologist specializing in crocodiles, believes he has debunked the symbiotic crocodile-plover myth convincingly, and certainly with wit, in his 2009 blog post: http://crocodilian.blogspot.com/2009/09/crocodile-myths-1-curious-trochilus.html. But the myth won’t quit. As recently as June 5, 2018 a Minnesota dental office sent out the tale yet again with its take on the crocodile as dental patient and the birds as dental assistants: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1700752186688148&set=did-you-know-the-egyptian-plover-bird-gets-into-the-crocodiles-mouth-and-picks-o. With the 2019 creation of the Chinese romantic comedy drama television series, Crocodile and the Plover Bird is proof that the myth “has legs” not just in the West. https://www.viki.com/tv/36168c-crocodile-and-the-plover-bird. (Retrieved 12/2/2022.) The myth’s continued online existence in flashcards, quizzes and quizlets as the quintessence of a symbiotic relationship[ii] demonstrates the enduring hold of the crocodile-cum-avian-cleaning-attendant which Herodotus tapped into almost three millennia ago.
[1] Ebook: https://books.google.com/books?id=_whgJIh_u9gC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 12/2/2022.
[1] E.g., https://quizizz.com/admin/quiz/5ecc6ed3a5c152001be156ee/ecological-relationships (Retrieved 12/2/2022). See Question #8: “Plover birds typically eat parasites trapped inside of crocodiles’ mouths. The plover receives a meal, while the crocodile is rid of parasites. What type of ecological relationships does this scenario represent?”
[i] Ebook: https://books.google.com/books?id=_whgJIh_u9gC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 12/2/2022.
[ii] E.g., https://quizizz.com/admin/quiz/5ecc6ed3a5c152001be156ee/ecological-relationships (Retrieved 12/2/2022). See Question #8: “Plover birds typically eat parasites trapped inside of crocodiles’ mouths. The plover receives a meal, while the crocodile is rid of parasites. What type of ecological relationships does this scenario represent?”