Oxpeckers are a genus of birds, Buphagus, belonging to the family Buphagidae within the order Passeriformes. Native to the savannas of Sub-Saharan Africa, they are known for their unique behaviour of perching on large mammals, where they feed on small invertebrates and even drink the animals’ blood, a habit reflected in both their English and scientific names.
There are two species of oxpecker: the yellow-billed oxpecker (Buphagus africanus) and the red-billed oxpecker (Buphagus erythrorynchus). They have wide bills, stiff tails, and sharp claws. Both have olive-brown upperparts, buff underparts, and a pale rump, along with red eyes and grey legs and feet. The key difference lies in their bills – the yellow-billed oxpecker has a yellow bill with a red tip, while the red-billed oxpecker’s bill is entirely red. The red-billed oxpecker also has a fleshy yellow wattle around its eye.
In 1760, French zoologist and natural philosopher Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of the yellow-billed oxpecker in his highly regarded six-volume work, Ornithologie.
Brisson focused on the birds’ external physical characteristics, providing detailed descriptions in both French and Latin. He also clearly noted whether he had examined a specimen firsthand or was relying on accounts from other authors.
It is not much larger than the Crested Lark. Its length from the tip of its beak to that of its tail is eight inches fixed lines, and to that of its nails, nine inches fixed lines. Its beak from its tip to the corners of its mouth is ten lines long; its tail three inches seven lines; its foot ten lines; and that of the middle of the three fore toes, joined with the nail, nine lines: the lateral ones are a little shorter; and that of the back is of the same length as the inside of those of the front. It has fourteen inches three lines of flight; and its wings, when folded, extend to half the length of the tail. The head, throat, collar, back & femoral feathers are of a grey-brown. The chest, belly, sides, legs, rump & undertail & tail coverts are of a pale & darkened yellowish. The undertail & tail coverts are of a pale & darkened yellowish and the underside of the wings are brown. The first four large feathers of the wing and the two middle ones closest to the body are grey-brown; all the others are a darker brown. The tail is composed of twelve very pointed feathers: the two in the middle are grey-brown: all the lateral ones are the same colour on the outer side, and ruffled on the inner side. The two in the middle are longer than the lateral ones, which all diminish a little and by degrees to the outermost one on each side, which is the shortest. The beak is yellow at its origin, and red towards the tip. (Some birds of this species have a brown beak; this is perhaps what distinguishes the male from the female). The feet and nails are brown.
This Bird perches on the backs of Oxen, and with repeated blows of its beak makes the fangs harden, not to feed on them, but to draw from under the epidermis worms, which live there until the moment of their metamorphosis, and of which it is very fond: this is what has given it the name of Oxpecker.
Brisson used both the French name Le pique-boeuf and the Latin Buphagus, derived from the Ancient Greek words bous (“ox”) and –phagos (“eating”). However, his Latin name did not conform to the binomial system. While Buphagus was later accepted as the genus name, the official scientific classification is credited to Carl Linnaeus, who relied heavily on Brisson’s work.
For the red-billed oxpecker, the specific epithet erythroryncha comes from the Ancient Greek eruthros (“red”) and rhunkhos (“bill”).
Oxpeckers inhabit open environments such as farmland, grasslands, and steppes, or anywhere large herbivores are found, though they are absent from the driest deserts and dense rainforests. Their distribution is closely tied to the availability of their preferred prey: specific tick species and the host animals that carry them.
They feed exclusively on the bodies of large wild and domesticated mammals, including rhinos, impalas, African buffalos, wildebeests, hippos, giraffes, zebras, and cattle. Occasionally, they have been observed grazing on elephants, though typically only on individuals in poor health. They also seem to avoid smaller antelopes such as topis and reedbucks, camels, and Lichtenstein’s hartebeests.
For a long time, oxpeckers were believed to have a mutualistic relationship with their host animals, an interaction where both species benefit, much like pollinators fertilising flowering plants. By feeding on ticks, small insects, larvae, and other parasites, oxpeckers were thought to help keep their hosts well-groomed while gaining nourishment in return. Since ticks can transmit deadly diseases and drain their hosts’ blood, the birds were assumed to provide an essential service. In addition to consuming parasites, oxpeckers also feed on earwax, dandruff, and blood from open wounds, and they also use hair and wool pulled from the hosts for nesting material.
However, more recent research suggests the relationship is more complex than originally thought.
In 2000, Paul Weeks from the University of Cambridge studied a herd of 22 oxen in Zimbabwe that were being fed on by red-billed oxpeckers. He observed that the birds spent less than 15% of their foraging time eating ticks, instead preferring to feed on skin wounds, earwax, or simply search through the oxen’s hair.
To test their impact, Weeks divided the herd into two groups, preventing oxpeckers from accessing one group for a month. Surprisingly, he found no significant increase in ticks or parasites on the oxen without oxpeckers. Furthermore, the ticks the birds did eat had already fed on the host, meaning they were full of blood and less harmful. He also observed that wounds on the oxen healed faster in the absence of oxpeckers.
This study suggests that oxpeckers may be more parasitic than mutualistic, a finding that has led some scientists to question the true nature of their so-called ‘cleaning’ relationship.
In Swahili, the red-billed oxpecker is known as Askari wa kifaru, meaning “the rhino’s guard”. Scientific research suggests this name is fitting, as these birds seem to act as an early warning system, helping rhinos detect and avoid humans, including poachers.
Roan Plotz, a behavioural ecologist at Victoria University, Australia, and Wayne Linklater from California State University found that black rhinos (Diceros bicornis) with oxpeckers were much better at sensing and avoiding humans than those without. The birds appear to compensate for the rhino’s poor eyesight by alerting them to potential danger.
In their study, the researchers counted the number of oxpeckers on two groups of rhinos. One group had been tagged with radio transmitters, allowing researchers to track them undetected by the birds. These tagged rhinos had oxpeckers on their backs more than half the time. In contrast, untagged rhinos were usually found without oxpeckers. This led Plotz to conclude that many untagged rhinos actually did carry oxpeckers but were warned by them and successfully avoided human encounters altogether.
Even when Plotz and his team managed to locate a tagged rhino, the oxpeckers still played a role in alerting them. To test this, a researcher would walk toward a rhino while a colleague observed its reaction.
They found that rhinos without oxpeckers detected an approaching human only 23% of the time. In contrast, rhinos with oxpeckers noticed every single approach, and from a much greater distance. The more oxpeckers a rhino had, the farther away it detected the human.
The study concluded that oxpeckers help black rhinos evade potential threats, perhaps to protect their own food source. By keeping their hosts safe, the birds ensure they always have access to the parasites, insects, and blood they feed on.
