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 binary regular and cyclical basis. The term 'symbiotic star' was first used in 1958 in a publication about 'stars of composite spectra'. However, the distinct category of symbiotic stars had been previously known. They were first recognized as a class of stars with unique spectroscopic qualities by Annie Cannon near the beginning of the 20th century. Their binary nature was made clear by the simultaneous existence of the spectral lines indicative of a red giant and of a white dwarf or neutron star. Symbiotic stars are all binaries and so the term "symbiotic binary" is synonymous. Many are variable and the