Both the English and scientific names arise from their habit of perching on large mammals (both wild and domesticated) such as cattle, zebras, impalas, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, and giraffes, eating ticks, small insects, botfly larvae, and other parasites, as well as the animals' blood.

The behaviour of oxpeckers towards large mammals was thought to be exclusively mutual, though recent research suggests the relationship can be parasitic in nature as well.

[3] The genus Buphagus was introduced in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson with the yellow-billed oxpecker as the type species.

[5] According to the more recent studies of Muscicapoidea phylogeny, the oxpeckers are an ancient line related to Mimidae (mockingbirds and thrashers) and starlings but not particularly close to either.

[6][7][8] Considering the known biogeography of these groups, the most plausible explanation seems that the oxpecker lineage originated in Eastern or Southeastern Asia like the other two.

[7] This would make the two species of Buphagus something like living fossils, and demonstrates that such remnants of past evolution can possess striking and unique autapomorphic adaptations.

[12] Oxpeckers have been observed to open new wounds and enhance existing ones in order to drink the blood of their perches.

[14] Other species tolerate oxpeckers while they search for ticks on their faces, which one author says "appears ... to be an uncomfortable and invasive process.