Trochilus (crocodile bird)

[5] When [the crocodile] has glutted itself with fish, it goes to sleep on the banks of the river, a portion of the food always remaining in its mouth; upon which, a little bird, which in Egypt is known as the trochilus, and, in Italy, as the king of the birds, for the purpose of obtaining food, invites the crocodile to open its jaws; then, hopping to and fro, it first cleans the outside of its mouth, next the teeth, and then the inside, while the animal opens its jaws as wide as possible, in consequence of the pleasure which it experiences from the titillation.

It is at these moments that the ichneumon, seeing it fast asleep in consequence of the agreeable sensation thus produced, darts down its throat like an arrow, and eats away its intestines.

[13]The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition says that this bird picks parasites from the teeth and hide of the crocodile and supposes a connection with the spur-winged lapwing and the Egyptian plover.

[10] The English adventurer Major Chaplin Court Treatt made the following statement in 1931 based on his travels in Africa: It is certainly amusing to newcomers and old hands alike, to watch some great crocodile sunning himself on a mud-bank, his cruel mouth gaping invitingly for the energetic crocodile bird to hop from one likely corner to another as he plays the part of an animated tooth-pick.

[16] MacFarland and Reeder, reviewing the evidence in 1974, found that: Extensive observations of Nile crocodiles in regular or occasional association with various species of potential cleaners (e.g. plovers, sandpipers, water dikkop) ... have resulted in only a few reports of sandpipers removing leeches from the mouth and gular scutes and snapping at insects along the reptile's body.