It occurs in a band across Sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east and south to parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The species is one of several plovers doubtfully associated with the "trochilus" bird mentioned by the Greek historian Herodotus in a supposed cleaning symbiosis with the Nile crocodile.

The Egyptian plover was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.

[4] The Egyptian plover is now the only species placed in the genus Pluvianus that was introduced in 1816 by the French ornithologist Louis Vieillot.

[10] Edme-Louis Daubenton used the French name, "Pluvian du Sénégal"' for the species in his Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle that was published between 1765 and 1783.

After landing, members of a pair greet each other by raising their wings in an elaborate ceremony that shows off the black and white markings.

[12] The Egyptian plover is a localised resident in tropical Sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east and south to parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

During the hot period of the day the parents wet the feathers of their underparts and then use this water to soak the eggs and the associated covering layer of sand.

[14] The identification of the Trochilus with any particular plover is doubtful and the cleaning symbiosis itself has never been documented by video or photographic evidence.