Crocodile guard (5 photos)

Half a millennium BC, the ancient Greek scholar Herodotus was busy describing everything: history, the lives of other countries, and, of course, the habits of animals. One day, he wrote a short essay about the crocodile guardian—an African bird that befriends crocodiles. He reported that the bird feeds on the teeth of crocodiles and warns them of danger.





Well, you're not brushing your teeth well, I see!

Thousands of years have passed since then, and only monuments remain of the ancient Greek civilization, but the story of the bird has become so ingrained in people's minds that it is called the crocodile bird in almost all European languages. It's a shame this story is a lie.



So... The eighth must be removed...

Yes, the crocodile keeper really does live in Africa and really does spend a lot of time around crocodiles. But that's where the truth ends and the fiction begins. The keeper calmly walks among the crocodiles not because he's a respected cleaner and alarm system all in one. But because none of them would even budge for 50 grams of bones and feathers.





The crocodile guard is subdued in color, but still looks stylish!

The guard, in turn, doesn't care about the crocodiles, since he doesn't feed on the meat from their teeth, but on all sorts of small insects and worms that he digs up from the ground. And he hangs out on the beach not because of good company, but because he has a nest nearby.



This is my beach, and I raise my young on it!

These birds have a very clever solution to the problem of incubating their eggs—they bury them directly in the sand, allowing the sun to incubate the young without any intervention. However, sometimes the sun gets too hot, and then, to avoid roasting their young, the birds have to dive into the water and sit on the eggs.



I work as a crocodile cleaner for fun, but otherwise I work in a factory!

"But how," the most attentive among you will object. "Half your article is photos of birds strolling across crocodile faces! It can't be that they don't interact in any way!" "Of course they can," we'll answer. It's just that Herodotus' myth lives on in people's minds, and some people take advantage of it. Take a closer look at the photos of crocodiles; they're all Photoshopped! No exaggeration. There are no real photos of this bird in a crocodile's mouth. We've been duped. Well, life will never be the same again...