The Fable of the Rhino and the Oxpecker by Barry J. Northern One morning, a black rhino looked up from the thorny bush he was stripping with his hooked lips, for he heard the distant rumble of hoofbeats. He squinted against the savannah sun and could see only a cloud of dust with a vaguely darker kernel, for his eyesite was poor. He set his feet to the ground and charged off to meet this new threat, for the bush was good, and the females were nearby. An oxpecker, who had been working at a tick near Rhino's ear, flew up above his head. "Charge, my tick-infested friend, charge well. Don't worry about your wounds, for I will keep them clean for you." Rhino called back. "Thank you little friend. I will be back as soon as I have dealt with my enemy." Rhino charged, and soon shortened the distance between himself and the approaching blur. The hoofbeats grew louder, until soon they were as loud as his own, and the distance closed so that even Rhino could clearly see his enemy -- another male, like himself. He called out to him. "Begone, my enemy. There is no room for you here." Then horns collided, and huge pointed heads glanced across each other forcing the pair eye-to-eye for an instant. Then the energy of their momentum was spent, and then their heavy bodies pounded the hard dirt beneath them in a slow cycle of stand-off and head-butting. The pair fought for several minutes, but Rhino was the largest, and so, before long, his rival backed away. "You are the better beast. Perhaps one day I will match your skill." Then Rhino's enemy turned and fled. Rhino chuckled, but it was only as he ambled back to his bush that he began to feel his injuries. When Rhino returned, Oxpecker was waiting, perched on the thorny bush. "Are you hurt my friend?" he said, and if Rhino's ears hadn't been ringing, he might have heard the hint of hopefulness in Oxpecker's voice. "A little. Nothing really, just a few scratches along my neck." "Oh dear, oh dear," said the bird, fussing over him. "You feast on your bush while I fe-- er, clean your wounds." Rhino bent his head down. "Thank you my friend." As he ate, Rhino insensibly ignored the sharp pains caused by the duplicitous bird's eager 'ministrations' as the Redbilled Oxpecker set about earning his name. "A good enemy is a better person than a false friend." It is commonly held that the symbiotic relationship between the Redbilled Oxpecker and the large mammals of the African plains, such as the Black Rhino, Impala, and Wildebeest, is mutualistic, that is beneficial to both parties. Recent research has shown that the tickbird's behaviour might not reduce the tickload of such animals, and even that it only feeds on engorged ticks to get the food it really wants -- the animal's blood. This is corroborated by observations of the birds drinking and eating from small wounds on the animals, and evidence of them keeping wounds from healing and enlarging them. Such evidence suggests the relationship actuallymay be parasitic, or that perhaps the relationship itself changes to suit environmental factors. Red-billed Oxpeckers : Vampires or Tickbirds? http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/11/2/154 The Fable of the Rhino and the Oxpecker by Barry J. Northern is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.Hosted by The Internet Archive, download MP3here. Music by Jeff Wahl from the album, Guitarscapes, track 5 "Reality Check", and track 11 "Waterfall", and provided by magnatune.com