Egyptian plover to feed on decaying meat lodged between the crocodiles' teeth. The identification of the trochilus with any particular plover is doubtful, as is the cleaning symbiosis itself; no known photographic evidence exists, and the written accounts are considered suspect by the biologist Thomas Howell. Egyptian plover The Egyptian plover ("Pluvianus aegyptius"), also known as the crocodile bird, is a wader, the only member of the genus "Pluvianus". Formerly placed in the pratincole and courser family, Glareolidae, it is now regarded as the sole member of its own monotypic family Pluvianidae. The species is one of several plovers doubtfully associated with
Symbiotic bacteria Symbiotic bacteria Symbiotic bacteria are bacteria living in symbiosis with another organism or each other. For example, Zoamastogopera, found in the stomach of termites, enable them to digest cellulose. Symbiosis was first defined by Anton de Bary in 1869 in a work entitled "Die Erscheinung der Symbiose" in which he defined the term as "namely, the living together of parasite and host". Associated with the term "symbiosis" are terms: mutualism, commensalism, parasitism, and amensalism. This may define or limit the type of "living together" of two organisms, be they plant, animal, protist or bacteria they practice. Some types of cyanobacteria