Egyptian Plover

A characteristic pair feeding on the shoreline, The Gambia The Egyptian plover (Pluvianus aegyptius), also known as the crocodile bird, is a wader, the only member of the genus Pluvianus. 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. Despite the name, it no longer occurs in Egypt. The species was formerly placed with the pratincoles and coursers in the family, Glareolidae, but is now regarded as the sole member of its own monotypic family Pluvianidae.

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.